Prevalence of Mycoplasma hominis and Ureaplasma urealyticum in women undergoing an initial infertility evaluation

Mycoplasma hominis and Ureaplasma urealyticum are potentially pathogenic bacterial species that are frequently isolated from the urogenital tract of women. These pathogens could be responsible for various genitourinary diseases and have been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes and female fertility problems. The aim of this study was to analyse the presence of M. hominis and U. urealyticum in the cervical canal of uterus of women with and without fertility problems.

Endocervical swabs obtained from women with reproductive problems and fertile women were tested by both cultivation and polymerase chain reaction. The antimicrobial susceptibility to the azithromycin, ciprofloxacin, doxycycline and erythromycine of the isolated strains of M. hominis and U. urealyticum was also tested by the microdilution broth method.

A total of 111 women with fertile problems were examined. U. urealyticum was detected in samples from 44 (39.6%) women. M. hominis was detected in significantly fewer samples, i.e. only from 9 (8.1%) samples. From these, 6 (5.4%) women were positive for both microorganisms. The fertile group consisted from 23 women. The presence of U. urealyticum was detected in 8 (34.7%) of them. M. hominis was detected only in the mixture with U. urealyticum in 3 (13.0%) cases. The most effective antibiotic against both species in our study was doxycycline.

The results show slightly higher incidence of M. hominis and U. urealyticum in the genitourinary tract of women with fertility problems compare with control group. The potential negative effect of these species on the reproduction ability of women was not observed.