[Gynecologic and obstetric infections caused by aerobic bacteria]

The anaerobic bacteria (AB) are between the most numerous microorganisms (mo) that constitute the flora of the female genital tract, so they can participate in the etiology of obstetric and gynecologic infections (OGI). The objective of this study was to investigate the frequency of AB isolations and the clinical characteristics of the anaerobic infections (AI) in patients of the National Institute of Perinatology, from January 1st, 1988 to May 31, 1991. AB were isolated from 117 patients who developed 163 infections; 167 anaerobic and 83 aerobic bacteria were recovered from these infections. The 99.2% were obstetric patients. The 85.5% of the isolations of AB were done from patients with endometritis, and 8.5% from postsurgical wound abscesses. Most of the AI were polymicrobial with a mean of 2.1 mo by infection. Peptostreptococcus, Clostridium and Bacteroids were the AB most frequent recovered. The majority of the patients had resolution of the infection within the first 5 days of antimicrobial treatment. There was no mortality in this group. We concluded that the AB have an important role in the etiology of OGI, then it is necessary that the treatment of these infections include antibiotics that cover AB.