PID, an infection and inflammation of all or some of the pelvic organs, affects more than 1.2 million women each year. Even after successful treatment with antibiotics, women who have had PID are much more likely to have resulting infertility, chronic pelvic pain, PID recurrence and ectopic pregnancy than women who have not had the disease.
"Until now, doctors have used idiosyncratic rules to determine which patients need to be hospitalized for PID. These data are the first to help doctors make that determination more rationally," said the study's principal investigator, Roberta Ness, M.D., M.P.H., director, Epidemiology of Women's Health Program, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, and associate professor of epidemiology, medicine and obstetrics/gynecology.
The PID Evaluation and Clinical Health (PEACH) study was a multi-center trial that randomized 831 women with PID to either inpatient or outpatient antibiotic treatment. About 75 percent of the participants were African-American, and the same percent had an educational level of high school or less. Antibiotic treatment for both inpatients and outpatients lasted approximately 14 days. Study participants were followed up in person at five and 30 days, then subsequently by telephone every three to four months.
When comparing the outcomes of the two groups after 35 months, pregnancy rates were nearly equal (42 percent outpatient; 41.7 percent inpatient), with no significant differences in the frequency of PID recurrence (12.4 percent outpatient; 16.6 percent inpatient), chr
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Contact: Kathryn Duda
412-624-2607
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
15-May-2002