Abstract

To determine the prevalence of cervical Chlamydia trachomatis genotypes in Iran for the first time and their association with three clinical symptoms/signs, i.e. abnormal vaginal discharge, lower abdominal pain (LAP) and swab-induced bleeding, and patient age, 620 cervical specimens were obtained from women with symptomatic genital infection referred to gynaecological clinics and 108 C. trachomatis-positive specimens were genotyped by direct omp1 gene PCR-RFLP analysis. Eight genotypes were identified. The most prevalent genotype was E (31.5 %), followed by F (23.1 %), D/Da (13 %), K (9.2 %), I (8.3 %), G (7.5 %), H (5.5 %) and J (1.9 %). For analysing the association of C. trachomatis genotypes with symptoms/signs and age, P-values were separately evaluated for genogroups and genotypes. The analysis of genogroups showed that women infected with genogroup F/G manifested the symptom of LAP significantly more often than those infected with the other genogroups (P=0.02), while the analysis of genotypes revealed that women infected with genotype F reported LAP slightly more often than women infected with the other genotypes (P=0.08). No significant correlation between genogroups and age was found; however, genotype E was somewhat less prevalent among women aged 25-34 years than among other age groups (P=0.08).