Role of Chlamydial infection in ectopic pregnancy

Introduction: The link between Chlamydia trachomatis (C. trachomatis) and ectopic pregnancy is mainly based on early sero-epidemiological case-control studies. Recent studies have shown divergent results concerning the risk of ectopic pregnancy following C. trachomatis infection. There has been no study done in Brunei to establish a correlation between the two. The purpose of this study was to determine whether chlamydial infection was more prevalent in young women with ectopic pregnancy attending RIPAS Hospital, Brunei Darussalam. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective study. All ectopic pregnancies encountered in RIPAS Hospital (January 2010 to December 2011) were included in the study. For comparison, 100 normal pregnancy cases were included. Endocervical swabs were taken and analysed with rapid immunoassay using Clearview Chlamydia MF. Results were analysed using Fisher's exact test on Graphpad software. Results: During the study period, a total of 123 ectopic pregnancies were encountered. Majority of patients with ectopic and normal pregnancies were in the 25-30 and 31-36 year age groups. There were no significant differences observed between the two group in the age groups (p=0.468 for trend) and their nationalities (p=0.572 for trend). Among patients with ectopic pregnancies, 6.5% (n=8) tested positive for Chlamydia infections compared to 5% (n=5) of normal pregnancies (p>0.05). Conclusion: There was no statistically significant difference in the incidence of Chlamydial infections between ectopic and normal pregnancies in our study.