Researchers Encourage More Chlamydia Screening

The reasons for more thorough chlamydiascreening are 2-fold. A study, reported inthe Annals of Internal Medicine (October 5,2004), found that more comprehensivescreening would likely reduce the frequencyof the disease and be cost-effective.

In the study, the researchers found thatscreening women under the age of 30, andsuggesting that any woman who hadchlamydia be tested every 6 months ratherthan only once after diagnosis, would raisehealth care costs by $107 per woman butwould prove cost-effective down the line."When you take into account the positiveeffects of screening—not only for the womenthemselves, but also the benefits from avoidingtransmission of the disease to babies orto men—screening becomes cost-saving,"said Delphine Hu, MD, PhD, study author.

Dr. Hu explained that the reason fortesting relatively older women for the diseasereflects current trends: women aremarrying later in life and thus have alonger period of sex partners, whichincreases their risk for chlamydia. Also,screening women every 6 months afterthey have had chlamydia is wise becausethose who have had it are 2 times as likelyto have a recurrence, compared withthose who have never had the disease.