Epidemiologic study of Chlamydia trachomatis infection in pregnant women.
OBJECTIVE
The presence of Chlamydia trachomatis in the cervical canal was investigated in 10,980 married pregnant women and 1,792 unmarried pregnant women who underwent artificial abortions in Hokkaido.


METHODS
Cervical canal smears were screened for C. trachomatis in pregnant patients.


RESULTS
In the married women, the detection rate of C. trachomatis was 5.6% (615 of 10,980 cases). In the unmarried women, the detection rate of C. trachomatis was 15.2% (272 of 1,792 cases). Stratification of the data on the detection of C. trachomatis as a function of the subjects' age showed that, for both the married and the unmarried women, the detection rate increased as the age of the subjects decreased. Analysis of the detection rate of C. trachomatis as a function of the year revealed that it had not changed since 1986.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings in this study show that there has been an epidemic of asymptomatic C. trachomatis infections in Hokkaido, especially in young women.
Koroku
M
M
Department of Urology, Sapporo Medical University, Japan.
Kumamoto
Y
Y
Hirose
T
T
Nishimura
M
M
Sato
T
T
Hayashi
K
K
Tsukamoto
T
T
Minami
K
K
Yoshio
H
H
D000328:Adult; D002353:Carrier State / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology; D002690:Chlamydia Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology; D002692:Chlamydia trachomatis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D017533:Marital Status; D008423:Maternal Age; D011159:Population Surveillance; D011247:Pregnancy; D011251:Pregnancy Complications, Infectious / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology; D015995:Prevalence; D014504:Urban Health; D002577:Uterine Cervical Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology