Commentary by Charlotte Gaydos, MS, MPH, DrPH, Johns Hopkins University Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are a significant health burden in the United States, having an estimated prevalence of over 110 million, with approximately 19 million incident infections annually.1 The most common bacterial infection of these is caused by Chlamydia trachomatis with 1,441,789 cases reported to […]
Commentary by Catherine Lindsey Satterwhite, PhD, MSPH, MPH In the October 2011 issue of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Yu and colleagues report on an evaluation of partner services delivered in eight family planning clinics in California. From 2005–2006, researchers interviewed females aged 16–35 years who were diagnosed with chlamydia to ascertain what partner services were received […]
Chlamydial reinfections are very common—as many as 1 in 5 people will have a repeat infection with chlamydia within the first few months after they are treated for their initial infection. Untreated chlamydia can increase a woman’s risk for developing: pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), infertility, ectopic pregnancy, and chronic pelvic pain. In fact, women who […]
Below are recommendations and information that can help you talk to patients in a sensitive, open, and non-judgmental manner. Avoid asking questions in a way that implies there is a right or wrong answer, such as: “You always use condoms, right?” or “You don’t have partners outside your marriage, do you?” Be specific about how […]
There are a few steps you can take to ask a parent to step out. First, lay out a course for the visit, for example: “We will spend some time talking together about Joseph’s health history and any concerns that you or he might have, and then I will also spend some time alone with […]
New Directions in Adolescent Risk What’s Different about Detroit’s School Screening Program? Research Aimed at Explaining Results Showing 5 Consecutive Years of Declines in CT Prevalence Detroit’s school-based STD screening program is the first such program to be associated with a sustained reduction in chlamydia prevalence. Richard Louis Dunville, MPH, Division of Adolescent and School […]
Commentary by Karen Hoover, MD, MPH Retesting for chlamydia several months after treatment is important, because a large percentage of persons will become reinfected by an untreated partner or by a new, infected one. Repeated chlamydial infections in women can increase their risk of pelvic inflammatory disease and its ad-verse outcomes of infertility, and ectopic […]
By John Papp, PhD Chlamydia and gonorrhea infections are common in non-genital sites in some populations such as men who have sex with men (MSM). Be-cause extra-genital infections are common in MSM and most infections are asymptomatic1, routine annual screening of extra-genital sites in MSM is recommended. No recommendations exist regarding routine extra-genital screening in […]
Commentary by Joan M. Chow, MPH, DrPH, Chief, Surveillance, Epidemiology, Assessment, and Evaluation Section, California Department of Public Health-Sexually Transmitted Disease Control Branch Although over 1.4 million chlamydia cases were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2013, there are potentially two to three times that number of infections as a […]
By Margaret R. Hammerschlag, MD The 2006 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) STD Treatment Guidelines recommended that NAATs can be used to detect C. trachomatis in children being evaluated for suspected sexual abuse if culture is not available and if positive results can be confirmed1. Confirmation was specified as use of another NAAT […]