Cochrane says: Chlamydia screening may have very limited impact, but more research is needed

There is a strong rationale for systematic Chlamydia screening, and it is widely recommended and practised. Yet there are harms associated with the screening process (Low(STIs)), and, of course, serious concerns about its cost-effectiveness (De Wit & Kretzschmar (STIs)).  This lends urgency to the question of whether Chlamydia screening works – addressed in a recently […]

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Trialling innovative approaches to STI partner services: Partner-Delivered vv. Accelerated Partner Therapy

It is vital to treat partners of patients with curable STIs as quickly as possible.  But the effectiveness of interventions to achieve this proves hard to measure – and the case for increasing resources correspondingly difficult to make.  The inadequacy of the resources available to existing partner services has led some investigators in the US […]

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Could Chlamydia treatment failure be the result of genital contamination from persistent gut infection

The persistence of Chlamydia trachomatis  (Ct) infection in treated patients is generally attributed either to re-infection or poor treatment adherence.  To some, however, the evidence has suggested the operation of an additional factor – such as treatment failure (STIs/ Goetz & Bruisten; STIs/ Pitt & Ison; STIs/ Horner). A recent study (Rank & Yeruva (R&Y)) […]

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Prospects for a high sensitivity point-of-care test for Chlamydia

A recent paper (Krölov&Langel) describes a technique for the diagnosis of Chlamydia trachomatis which, if developed into a point-of-care test (POCT), could be performed in just twenty minutes and would achieve a considerably greater sensitivity (83%) than any of the POCT alternatives to the current laboratory testing process using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR).  The technique […]

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How does neighbourhood impact on STI (Chlamydia) risk?

The influence of neighbourhood on STI (and more particularly Chlamydia) acquisition is widely recognized fact.  Biello & Nikkolai argue for UK urban populations that neighbourhood socio-economic status (SES) is more closely correlated with Chlamydia risk than individual SES (http://sti.bmj.com/content/87/7/560.abstract?sid=88b6a7a5-11c9-472d-bd9a-39664d4142b7).  In another UK study (Birmingham), Shahmanesh & Ross find residence in neighbourhoods having certain SES characteristics […]

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