Effect of menstrual cycle and method of contraception on recovery of Neisseria gonorrhoeae.

We examined the records of 5,287 women who were names as sexual contacts of men who had gonococcal urethritis in the National Gonorrhea Therapy Monitoring Study. Neisseria gonorrhoeae was recovered from endocervical cultures from 3,247 (61.4%) of the women. Participants who were seen during the first five days of the menstrual cycle were slightly more likely to have a positive culture (64.9%) than women who were seen on days 6 through 10 (61.3%), days 11 through 15 (60.0%), days 16 through 20 (59.8%), days 21 through 25 (60.4%), or after day 25 (61.2%). Similar data were obtained for 1,489 untreated women who presented because a recent screening culture contained N gonorrhoeae. Neisseria gonorrhoeae was isolated from pretreatment cultures from 231 (79.7%) of 290 such women who were examined during the first five days of their menstrual cycle and from 884 (73.7%) of 1,199 women who were examined later in the cycle. Method of contraception had no statistically significant influence on the recovery of N gonorrhoeae.