Pelvic Inflammatory Disease Symptoms

Under the term infectious pelvic inflammatory disease are a variety of inflammatory conditions which affect the upper female genital tract, underlying connective tissue and pelvic cavity. The entity encompasses an incredibly broad clinical spectrum, from forms "silent" or asymptomatic infection to an acute illness as life threatening. Most doctors know what this term is imprecise in the medical literature.

Many authors include infections that occur during pregnancy, postpartum, post abortion, or after surgery. In many cases the anatomy, microbiology and histopathology findings are almost indistinguishable from a real PID.

Infectious pelvic inflammatory disease currently affects over 50% of the female population of reproductive age, understood as such, all women aged between 13 and 49 years of age. The estimate of episodes of this entity in the United States reached in a study conducted in 1992 between 620 000 and 2 million women and it is estimated that about 420 000 were treated in private physicians. In our country, Pelvic Infection is the reason for admission of more than sixty percent of cases of Gynecology, surpassed only by bleeding disorders.

Symptoms of PID include:

  • Pain in the lower belly area.
  • Fever.
  • Vaginal discharge that may smell strange.
  • Intercourse with pain.
  • Irregular menstrual bleeding.
  • Pain during a pelvic exam.

Among the analysis of differential diagnosis are:

  • Endometriosis.
  • Pelvic adhesions.
  • Hemorrhagic corpus luteum.
  • Ovarian cyst.
  • Ectopic pregnancy.
  • Urinary tract lithiasis.
  • Acute appendicitis.