The incidence of sexually related conditions in asymptomatic versus symptomatic patients

Abstract

We studied, retrospectively, 400 consecutive case-notes (200 for each sex) for patients who presented with or without complaints of urethral or vaginal discharge. The incidence of sexually related conditions was identified for each of the four patients subgroups to objectively inform the process of triage. In all, 60% of asymptomatic female and 40% of asymptomatic male patients in the study had a condition of genitourinary (GU) medicine significance. Two-thirds of female patients had a condition of GU medicine significance whether they were symptomatic or asymptomatic. Some 16% of asymptomatic males would have had a delay in treatment of chlamydia, with a 19% loss of identifying non-specific urethritis, if they were triaged on the basis of lack of symptoms, and microscopy tests were abandoned for this group of patients.