Colposcopic evaluation of cervix in patients with bacterial vaginosis

Abstract

Abstract Background and aim Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a clinical syndrome emerging from changing of the bacteria Lactobacillus species that produce hydrogen peroxide in the vagina with many population of anaerobic bacteria. A lot of researchers have agreed with the relation between BV and cervical intra-epithelial lesions. However, other researchers have not accepted this relation between cervical neoplasia and BV. The study aim was to evaluate the abnormal colposcopic findings associated with BV and to study the relation between BV and cervical lesions. Patients and methods This study is a cross-sectional observational one that included 246 women diagnosed as having BV using Amsle’s criteria. All participants underwent proper history taking, general and abdominal examination, local vaginal examination, and colposcopic examination. Finally, Swede score was applied to abnormal colposcopic findings. Results By naked-eye examination, there were 163 patients with normal findings and 83 patients had abnormal cervical appearance, colposcopic examination of patients revealed 14 patients with unsatisfactory findings, and 196 patients had normal findings and 36 patients had abnormal cervix. The abnormal colposcopic findings were significantly associated with urban (55.6%) than rural women (44.4%) (P=0.039), educated (72.2%) than noneducated women (27.8%) (P=0.033), nonemployed (72.2%) than employed women (27.8%) (P=0.011), and women using oral contraceptive pills (OCP) (38.9%) than other contraceptive methods (P=0.024). Conclusion Most cervical lesions associated with BV in our study were of low grade and although use of colposcopy allowed early detection and management of cervical precancerous lesions associated with BV.

Keywords

• bacterial vaginosis
• cervical cancer
• cervix
• colposcopy