Screening for Chlamydia trachomatis infection among infertile women

Chlamydia trachomatis infection is a worldwide distributed sexually-transmitted infection that may lead to infertility. This study aims to report the prevalence of Chlamydia trachomatis infection among infertile women in Saudi Arabia. A community-based study, carried out at obstetrics and gynaecology clinic at Jazan General Hospital, Saudi Arabia. The study-group included 640 infertile women who aged between 18 and 40 years-old and attended the gynaecology clinic for infertility work-up throughout the one year of the study. The control-group include a randomized 100 fertile women who attended the obstetric clinic for routine antenatal-care. All recruited women were screened for Chlamydia infection by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELIZA) for detection of serum specific antibodies and then re-tested by McCoy cell culture technique. The prevalence of Chlamydia trachomatis infection among infertile women was high, 15.0%. The rate of chlamydia infection detected by ELIZA was 9.84% while it was 12.03% by the culture method (p = 0.2443). The high prevalence of Chlamydia trachomatis infection among infertile women demands a national screening programme for early detection. ELIZA is a simple alternative screening test to the culture method.