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Pelvic inflammatory disease

How common is pelvic inflammatory disease?

We don't know exactly how many women get pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). Doctors probably underestimate the true numbers because women with mild symptoms, or no symptoms at all, may never be diagnosed.

In the United States, nearly 1 million women are known to get PID each year. And 1 in 8 sexually active adolescent girls are expected to get PID before the age of 20.

Source:
U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Medline Plus: pelvic inflammatory disease (PID).
September 2008. Available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000888.htm (accessed on 30 April 2009).

More than 100,000 women become infertile each year because of PID. Many of the 70,000

ectopic pregnancy
An ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilized egg lodges itself outside of your womb. This can be a dangerous condition.

ectopic pregnancies that happen every year are caused by PID.

Source:
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Pelvic inflammatory disease.
April 2009. Available at http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/healthscience/healthtopics/pelvic/ (accessed on 30 April 2009).

Here are some reasons why you may be more likely to get PID.

Source:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pelvic inflammatory disease.
Available at http://www.cdc.gov/std/PID/STDFact-PID.htm (accessed on 30 April 2009).

Source:
Grodstein F, Rothman KJ.
Epidemiology of pelvic inflammatory disease.
Epidemiology. 1994; 5: 234-242.

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You're younger than 25. Your

cervix
The cervix is a piece of tissue that sits between a woman's womb and her vagina. It has a small opening in it that gets much bigger when a woman is having a baby.

cervix is more likely to be damaged by an infection when you're young.
You've had a

sexually transmitted infection
An infection that is spread by people having sex is called a sexually transmitted infection (STI) or a sexually transmitted disease (STD). Examples are HIV, gonorrhoea and syphilis.

sexually transmitted infection before. This may have already started to damage your reproductive organs, so you're more likely to get PID if you get another infection.
You've had PID before.
You have more than one sex partner, or your sex partner has other partners.

Sources for the information on this page:

U.S. National Library of Medicine.Medline Plus: pelvic inflammatory disease (PID).September 2008. Available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000888.htm (accessed on 30 April 2009).

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.Pelvic inflammatory disease.April 2009. Available at http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/healthscience/healthtopics/pelvic/ (accessed on 30 April 2009).

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Pelvic inflammatory disease.Available at http://www.cdc.gov/std/PID/STDFact-PID.htm (accessed on 30 April 2009).

Grodstein F, Rothman KJ.Epidemiology of pelvic inflammatory disease.Epidemiology. 1994; 5: 234-242.

This information was last updated on May 01, 2009

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