Effect of acute pelvic inflammatory disease on fertility

A total of 415 women treated for laparoscopically verified pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) were reviewed after 9.5 years. Of these, 88 (21.2 per cent) were involuntarily childless after one or more infection; in 72 cases (17.3 per cent) this was due to tubal obstruction; 263 (63.4 per cent) women became pregnant; 64 (15.4 per cent) were voluntarily childless. Tubal occlusion was diagnosed after one infection in 12.8 per cent, after two infections in 35.5 per cent, and after three or more infections in 75 per cent of the women. Tubal occlusion was more common after nongonorrheal than after gonorrheal salpingitis. Infertility varied with the inflammatory changes seen at laparoscopy. The ratio between ectopic and intrauterine pregnancies after the infections was 1/24. Chronic abdominal pain was reported by 18.1 per cent of the women. Corresponding findings in 100 healthy control subjects were: involuntary childlessness in three despite normal Fallopian tubes, one ectopic in 147 intrauterine pregnancies, and chronic abdominal pain in five cases.