Pelvic Inflammatory Disease
The term pelvic inflammatory disease has come to replace in recent years the name of salpingitis or salpingoovaritis, trying to cover a larger number of structures affected by the same infectious agents.
The can be defined as a syndrome (set of signs and symptoms) characterized by the upper genital tract infection. Now, the organs may be involved in this disease include the uterus and the fallopian tubes, ovaries and surrounding structures that comprise the pelvic cellular tissue and peritoneum.
They have identified numerous risk factors primarily related to sexual behavior, lower genital tract exposure to infectious microorganisms (particularly gonorrhea and chlamydia), and the possibility that any microorganisms ascend to the upper genital tract dilation and curettage and introduce bacteria, or by local conditions provided by immune deficiency, cervicitis, menses.
We have no reliable figures on the incidence of PID or national or regional level. In USA it is estimated that each year approximately one million women are treated for Pelvic Inflammatory Disease.
The incidence is highest in adolescents and women younger than 25 years. This condition and its complications cause more than 2.5 million visits and over 150,000 surgical procedures each year. From 18 to 20 per 1000 women aged 15 to 24 years each year acquiring salpingitis, with the SA the cause of 5 to twenty percent of hospitalizations in the USA gynecology services.
From eight to twenty percent of untreated women with endocervical infection with Neisseria gonorrhoeae or Chlamydia trachomatis developed SA, more than twenty five percent of patients with SA are under twenty five years of age and seventy five percent were nulliparous. The SA is responsible for approximately twenty percent of cases of infertility.