Prevention of pelvic inflammatory disease by screening for cervical chlamydial infection

Chlamydia trachomatis is a frequent cause of pelvic inflammatory disease. However, there is little information from clinical studies about whether screening women for cervical chlamydial infection can reduce the incidence of this serious illness.

We conducted a randomized, controlled trial to determine whether selective testing for cervical chlamydial infection prevented pelvic inflammatory disease. Women who were at high risk for disease were identified by means of a questionnaire mailed to all women enrollees in a health maintenance organization who were 18 to 34 years of age. Eligible respondents were randomly assigned to undergo testing for C. trachomatis or to receive usual care; both groups were followed for one year. Possible cases of pelvic inflammatory disease were identified through a variety of data bases and were confirmed by review of the women's medical records. We used an intention-to-screen analysis to compare the incidence of pelvic inflammatory disease in the two groups of women.

Of the 2607 eligible women, 1009 were randomly assigned to screening and 1598 to usual care. A total of 645 women in the screening group (64 percent) for chlamydia; 7 percent tested positive and were treated. At the end of the follow-up period, there had been 9 verified cases of pelvic inflammatory disease among the women in the screening group and 33 cases among the women receiving usual care (relative risk, 0.44; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.20 to 0.90). We found similar results when we used logistic-regression analysis to control for potentially confounding variables.

A strategy of identifying, testing, and treating women at increased risk for cervical chlamydial infection was associated with a reduced incidence of pelvic inflammatory disease.