Gardnerella vaginalis and mosaic colposcopic pattern of the cervix: casual or causal association?

We made a retrospective study of the flora found in the vaginal smears of sexually active women who presented with a mosaic colposcopic pattern of the uterine cervix in an attempt to study some of its epidemiologic factors. Of the 195 cervicovaginal cytologies of patients with mosaic, 61 revealed an abnormal flora (31.2%) while of the 9,856 patients without mosaic, only 2,234 cytologies had an abnormal flora (22.7%) demonstrating a statistically significant higher frequency (p less than 0.0001) of an abnormal flora in women with a mosaic pattern on the cervix. A statistically significant association (p less than 0.02) was encountered between the presence of Gardnerella vaginalis and the mosaic colposcopic pattern, and surprisingly a statistically greater frequency (p less than 0.05) of biopsied dysplasias in the same group. At the moment we can interpret these observations as nothing more than interesting initial findings.