Study: STDs Go Undiagnosed, Untreated
Feb. 13 -- If you are a sexually active adult who has not been recently tested for gonorrhea or chlamydia, there is a chance that you may be carrying one of these diseases without knowing it.
In a study of 579 adults aged 18 to 35 years living in Baltimore, Md., researchers found that nearly one in 12 people (7.9 percent) in this age group was infected with either gonorrhea or chlamydia; 5.3 percent had untreated gonorrhea infections while 3.0 percent had chlamydia.
Left untreated, these infections can cause serious complications that can lead to infertility in both sexes.
The study, in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, reports that most of the people who were carrying the infections were unaware that they had the diseases because they did not experience the characteristic disease symptoms.
For example, among the carriers, only 2 percent reported burning during urination and 4.7 percent reported discharge.
"A lot of folks have said that Baltimore has some rather unique issues in terms of STD rates and socio-economics," says Dr. Peter Leone, assistant professor of medicine in the division of infectious disease at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and co-author of the study. "But I do think it still raises the question about how [often] these diseases [go undiagnosed] in the general population."
A Nationwide Problem?
Approximately 650,000 people in the United States are infected with gonorrhea each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The rates for chlamydia are much higher, and in 1997 only one-sixth of the estimated three million cases of chlamydia were reported. Experts say this is most likely due to underreporting based on a lack of symptoms.
"I think it is safe to anticipate that all urban areas have substantial rates of undetected gonorrhea or chlamydia," says Dr. Dennis Fortenberry, author of an accompanying editorial and associate professor of pediatrics and medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis.
