following treatment in case of positiveness) or to storage and analysis after one year (using these samples as controls). At the baseline, 68 of the women undergoing screening and 75 controls were positive to Chlamydia. During one-year follow-up, 38 women have developed a pelvic inflammatory disease.
The incidence of PID has been of 1.3% in the group
undergoing screening and of 1.9% in the control group (the difference is not statistically significant). Among the women already presenting Chlamydia-related infection at the beginning of the trial, only 1 in the group undergoing screening and 7 in the control group have developed a PID afterwards, and, even in this case, statistical significance was not reached. We must note that 30 PIDs out of 38 occurred in women not having Chlamydia-related infection at the beginning of the trial.
The trial does not show that Chlamydia screening reduces the risk of PID: non-significant results could, however, be due to a non-sufficient sample. In any case, it is interesting to note that most part of PIDs
occurred in women not positive for Chlamydia. It follows then that the best way to prevent PID is to reduce risk factors (making women with a recent change of their partners or with a history of Chlamydia in the
last months undergoing screening) as much as possible.
