Prevalence of Chlamydia trachomatis in Pregnant Iranian Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Several studies have been conducted regarding the prevalence of chlamydia trachomatis, mycoplasma hominis and ureaplasma urealyticum in Iranian pregnant women. However, unifying the previous results and presenting a general assessment seems necessary. The present study was conducted based on systematic review and meta-analysis studies (PRISMA). We searched national and international online databases such as Magiran, Iranmedex, SID, Medlib, Scopus, IranDoc, PubMed, Web of Science, Online library Wiley, Science Direct, Cochrane, Springer and Google Scholar for certain Mesh keywords until October, 2016. A random-effects meta-analysis model was used to combine the results. The data were analyzed using Review Manager Ver. 5.3.5 and P value less than 0.05 was considered significant. Overall3316 pregnant women were examined in 13 studies. Prevalence of Chlamydia trachomatis in 10 surveyed articles with a sample size of 2757 Iranian pregnant women was calculated to be 10.59% (95% CI: 8.46-12.71). Prevalence of chlamydia trachomatis using ELISA and PCR methods was calculated to be 8.33% and 13.63%, respectively and the difference was statistically significant (P=0.0007). Meta-analysis results regarding the prevalence of mycoplasma hominis (in 4 articles with a sample size of 755 women) and ureaplasma urealyticum (in 3 articles with a sample size of 615 women) was calculated to be 10.43% (95% CI: 6.98-13.89) and 14.46% (95% CI: 8.89-20.38), respectively. Prevalence of reproductive tract infections is high among Iranian pregnant women and considering their maternal and fetal complications, screening pregnant women as part of preventive measures seems necessary.