[Bacteriologic findings and therapeutic consequences in adnexitis]

After laparoscopic confirmation of adnexitis, a bacteriological examination was made of specimens taken from the small pelvis of 63 patients, with an average age of 26.4 years, at the Rheinischen Landesfrauenklinik (Gynecological Hospital) in Wuppertal. To this end, various aerobic and anaerobic optimal and selective culture media were used. The cultured germs were identified with API systems, other conventional methods, and by using gas chromatography. All bacilli were tested for their sensitivity to mezlocillin and metronidazole. In 40 cases (63.5%), it was possible to determine 1-10 bacilli from the inner genital tract. In most cases there was an aerobic/anaerobic mixed infection, with participation of streptococci, staphylococci, enteric bacteria, as well as peptococci, peptostreptococci and bacteroid types. Neisseria gonorrhoeae was only identified three times. In 23 cases (36.5%), it was not possible to determine bacilli in spite of definite inflammatory symptoms. Since, according to international literature, Chlamydia trachomatis was to be found on the inflamed tubes of roughly one third of cases of adnexitis, the presence of this bacillus is suspected even in the many bacteriologically negative cases in the author's own study. Only in one case of a monoinfection by Staphylococcus aureus did the combination of mezlocillin and metronidazole prove to be unsuitable. In 25% of the cases where the presence of bacilli was proved, metronidazole was even necessary, since bacilli of the Bacteroides fragilis and Bacteroides bivius and disiens groups were involved, all of which are capable of inactivating penicillins and cephalosporins by formation of a beta-lactamase.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)