Reduction in hospitalized women with pelvic inflammatory disease in Oslo over the past decade.

BACKGROUND: A tuboovarian abscess (TOA) is a common complication of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), occurring world-wide in 15-30% of women with PID. The aim of the study was to identify changes during the last 10 years in the number of women hospitalized with PID in Oslo, as well as a change regarding the frequencies of the subdiagnoses salpingitis and tuboovarian abscess.

METHODS: We performed a review of computerized diagnosis lists and manual check of the medical records of women hospitalized with PID in Oslo. The years 1990-92 and 2000-02 were included, resulting in information from two time periods 10 years apart. Cases were registered as salpingitis, oophoritis or tuboovarian abscess. Medical and demographic variables from the medical records of women diagnosed during 4 out of the 6 years were described in detail.

RESULTS: We identified 523 women with the diagnosis of PID hospitalized during 1990-92 and 2000-02. There was a 35% reduction in hospitalized cases of salpingitis over the period of 10 years, but the number of cases of tuboovarian abscesses among women admitted for PID remained unchanged from 1990-92 to 2000-02. We found low frequencies of Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoea infections, although documented bacteriological sampling was insufficient.

CONCLUSIONS: Fewer patients were hospitalized in Oslo for PID during the time period of 2000-02 compared with 10 years earlier, but a higher percentage of patients had developed TOA compared with the first time period (43% compared with 26%, p = 0.013), indicating a changing clinical panorama of PID.