Clinical presentation of gynecologic infections among Indian women

To study the clinical presentation of different gynecologic infections among Indian women.

This was a cross-sectional study of 257 women that included clinical, cytologic, colposcopic, and microbiologic screening for various gynecologic infections.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) was the leading infection, affecting 127 (49.4%) women; however, overt warts were only seen in seven (2.7%) patients. Women infected with HPV had a 60.3-fold higher risk of developing a bleeding ectopia compared to those with other infections; women with an unhealthy cervix and cervical ectopias also had an increased risk of HPV infection (7.6- and 2.8-fold, respectively). Bacterial vaginosis, detected in 33.5% of the women studied, had an increased risk of bleeding ectopia (9.3-fold), cervical ectopia (3.1-fold), cervicitis (2.9-fold), vaginitis (6.9-fold), and cervical hypertrophy (2.1-fold). Chlamydial infection, detected in 23.3% of the patient population, was associated with an eightfold increase in the risk of an unhealthy cervix and a fourfold increase in risk of a hypertrophied cervix. Immunoglobulin-A antibodies to the herpes simplex virus were detected in 53 (20.6%) women. More than half (55.2%) of the women had two or more infections, and the mean delay of seeking medical treatment was 7-13 months.

The specific finding of bleeding cervices was associated with HPV and bacterial vaginosis, hypertrophied cervices with chlamydia and bacterial vaginosis, and unhealthy cervices with chlamydia and HPV infections.