Prevalence of Chlamydia trachomatis among Childbearing Age Women in India: A Systematic Review

Table 1

Characteristics of the studies addressing Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) prevalence among childbearing age women in India.

Author	Year	Setting	Location	Population		Age	Diagnostic method	Sample source	Prevalence (95% CI)^1	Validity
Vidwan et al. [15]	2012	ANC clinic	Tamil Nadu	Pregnant (≥28 weeks’ gestation)	784	Mean: 25.8; Range: 18–39	NAA	Endocervical	0.1% (0–0.38%)	This is the largest study on CT prevalence among healthy pregnant mothers in South India. But project sample population may not represent local delivering female population.
Patel et al. [16]	2010	GYN clinic	New Delhi	Symptomatic, nonpregnant	335	Median: 29; Range: 18–60	PCR	Endocervical	23.0%	Used in-house PCR method which was cost-effective; included only symptomatic patients.
Becker et al. [17]	2010	GYN clinics	Karnataka	Symptomatic	335	Mean: 30.7	PCR	Endocervical	2.7%	It has good sample size;women were recruited from gynecology clinics; itmay lead to enrollment of low risk women.
Dwibedi et al. [18]	2009	OB/GYN clinic	Orissa	Symptomatic	71	Mean: 31.5; (SD: 7.3)	PCR	Endocervical	7.0%	It has small sample size. It is the first report from the region. It may help clinicians of the region in treating cases with similar symptoms.
Singh et al. [19]	2003	GYN clinic	New Delhi	Symptomatic and asymptomatic	280	18–25; 25–35; 35–45^2	PCR	Endocervical	28.5%; 7.6%; 3.2%	Studied age-wise prevalence rate and determined most prevalent serovars of CT.
Joyce et al. [20]	2004	Community^3	Tamil Nadu	Symptomatic and asymptomatic	1066	Range: 15–45	PCR; ELISA	Urine; Blood	1.1% (0.5–1.7%); 3.3% (1.9–4.7%)	It is the first population based study in India. It has the largest sample size. It used two methods to determine prevalence.

95% CI reported when available from paper.
²Reported only as age groups; no measure of central tendency available.
95% CI: 95% confidence interval; ANC: antenatal care; OB/GYN: obstetrics and gynecology; GYN: gynecology; SD: standard deviation; NAA: nucleic acid amplification; PCR: polymerase chain reaction; ELISA: enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; DFA: direct fluorescent antibody; STI: sexually transmitted infection.
³Representative sample taken from 3 randomly selected districts by using the probable proportional to size cluster survey method.