Abstract

Advancing the understanding of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) requires access to advanced diagnostic approaches for evaluating reproductive sequelae of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Current limitations of clinical criteria and advanced imaging technologies for diagnosing reproductive sequelae make diagnosis and surveillance of PID a challenge. We summarize and comment on major challenges in diagnostic evaluation of reproductive sequelae: limited point-of-care clinical diagnostic options for reproductive sequelae, economic and geographical obstacles to accessing state-of-the-art diagnostics, an expanding list of STIs that may cause reproductive sequelae and the complexities in evaluating them, and the need for coordinated research efforts to systematically evaluate biomarkers with gold-standard, well-defined specimens and associated clinical data. The future use of biomarkers in readily accessible mucosal or blood-derived specimens as a noninvasive approach to determining STI etiologies may be fruitful and requires more research. Biomarkers under consideration include cytokines, STI-specific antibody responses, and mRNA transcriptional profiles of inflammatory markers.

中文翻译：

---

对当前评估性传播感染生殖后遗症的诊断挑战和研究需求的评论

摘要

增进对盆腔炎 (PID) 的了解需要采用先进的诊断方法来评估性传播感染 (STI) 的生殖后遗症。目前用于诊断生殖后遗症的临床标准和先进成像技术的局限性使得 PID 的诊断和监测成为一项挑战。我们总结并评论了生殖后遗症诊断评估中的主要挑战：生殖后遗症的护理点临床诊断选择有限、获得最先进诊断的经济和地理障碍、可能导致性传播感染的不断扩大的性传播感染列表。生殖后遗症及其评估的复杂性，以及协调研究工作的需要，以利用金标准、明确的标本和相关临床数据系统地评估生物标志物。未来在易于获取的粘膜或血液样本中使用生物标志物作为确定性传播感染病因的非侵入性方法可能会取得成果，但需要更多的研究。正在考虑的生物标志物包括细胞因子、STI 特异性抗体反应和炎症标志物的 mRNA 转录谱。