Research Article Chlamydia trachomatis Antibody Testing in Vaginal Mucosal Material versus Blood Samples of Women Attending a Fertility Clinic and an STI Clinic

Copyright © 2014 Ingrid V. F. van den Broek et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Chlamydia infections often follow an asymptomatic course but may damage the reproductive tract. Chlamydia antibodies in serum are used as markers for past infections and can relate to tubal pathology and infertility.This “proof of principle” study aimed to assess whether Chlamydia antibodies are detectable in easier to obtain, noninvasive, vaginal mucosa samples and relate to current or past infection.Methods.We compared outcomes of Chlamydia IgG and IgA antibody tests in serum and vaginal mucosal swabs in (a) 77 women attending a fertility clinic, of whom 25 tested positive for serum-IgG and (b) 107 women visitin