New research has determined that a common condition that affects an estimated one-third of all women, which is known as bacterial vaginosis (BV), is actually a sexually transmitted infection (STI). Now, recommendations about how to treat it could change, which may dramatically improve women's health and lower the high incidence of this infection. The findings have been reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
BV can cause infertility, premature birth, and newborn death. Right now, it is treated as a dysbiosis, or imbalance in the microbial community that is a normal part of the vagina. But about 50% of affected women experience a recurrence within three months of the current treatment, which is a week of antibiotics. But researchers began to consider that men should be treated too.
In this study, the investigators recruited 164 monogamous couples, where BV was treated as an STI would be, or as it usually is. This meant both partners were simultaneously treated for BV in one group, while only women were treated in another group. The antibiotics were given for one week, then the researchers followed up with the couples for 12 weeks to analyze the efficacy of the treatment approach over three months.
The study found that BV recurrence had been cut in half in the group in which both partners were treated. The trial was halted early based on these significant findings.
"This successful intervention is relatively cheap and short and has the potential for the first time to not only improve BV cure for women, but opens up exciting new opportunities for BV prevention, and prevention of the serious complications associated with BV," said senior study author Catriona Bradshaw, a Professor at Monash University, among other appointments.
"We've suspected for a long time that it's a sexually transmitted infection (STI), because it has a similar incubation period (after sex) to most STIs and is associated with the same risk factors as STIs like chlamydia, such as change in sexual partner and not using condoms," said first study author Dr. Lenka Vodstrcil, also of Monash, among other appointments.
Having BV has previously been shown to raise the risk of contracting other STIs. The study authors noted that this work has shown that a lot of BV recurrence is due to reinfection from a partner, which "provides evidence that BV is in fact an STI."
Clinical treatment has already changed at one site in Australia. Now the researchers are trying to make this new data more widely available so that more people know that it's important to treat both partners to truly eliminate BV.
