The impact of human immunodeficiency virus infection on pelvic inflammatory disease: a case-control study in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

OBJECTIVE

Our purpose was to assess the impact of human immunodeficiency virus infection on pelvic inflammatory disease.

STUDY

DESIGN

A case-control study was performed in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, women with pelvic inflammatory disease, 57 seropositive and 113 seronegative for the human immunodeficiency virus. Women underwent an interview, physical examination, pelvic ultrasonography, and laboratory testing.

RESULTS

Seropositive women more often had an oral temperature > or = 38 degrees C (odds ratio 2.5, confidence interval 1.0 to 6.4), a genital ulcer (odds ratio 7.8, confidence interval 1.8 to 45.4), and a tuboovarian mass on ultrasonography (odds ratio 2.6, confidence interval 1.1 to 6.4) and were more likely to require surgery (odds ratio 6.5, confidence interval 1.1 to 67.5) and hospitalization (odds ratio 3.5, confidence interval 0.9 to 14.3). The mean clinical severity score was significantly higher among seropositive than among seronegative patients (17.4 vs 15.4 p = 0.01). Gonorrhea was detected in 50 (29.4%) and chlamydia in 16 (9.4%) of the 170 patients, and neither infection was significantly correlated with human immunodeficiency virus infection. After therapy similar proportions of seropositive and seronegative patients (95% and 93%) reported symptomatic improvement within 4 days, and none had persistent fever at day 4 or 14 of follow-up.

CONCLUSIONS

Human immunodeficiency virus infection was associated with more severe clinical manifestations of pelvic inflammatory disease but did not affect microbial cause or response to therapy.