To Determine the Prevalence of Micro Organisms Responsible for the Vulvovaginitis in Patient Presenting to one of the Tertiary Care Hospital in Riyadh

Abstract Alteration of the vaginal flora leads to the growth of the microorganisms. Objective: The objective of the study was to determine the most common organism responsible for the vulvovaginitis in our population of the patient. Material and methods: We have conducted a retrospective study to see the most common infection in the non-pregnant Cohort of the symptomatic patients .We have excluded the pre pubertal and menopausal women and the women for whom the swab was also taken for gram staining for bacterial vaginosis. The data was then analyzed through the version 30 of the SPSS. Results: The total number of the high vaginal swabs which were taken in symptomatic patients during the study period were 4055 out of which 41.67% (n=1690) of the swabs were positive for one organism and in 1.3% (n=22) more than one organism was found. Fifty percent of our study population (n= 851) belonged to the age group between 18-28 years and 41.3%(n= 697) belonged to the age bracket of 28.1-38 years. Regarding the parity 87.9% of the study population was para 3 or less (n=1487), and only 12% (n=203) of the population was para 4 and above. The total number of positive swabs were 1690, and out of 1690 positive HVS swabs,70.7% (n=1211) were positive for candida albicans and in 18.5%(n=318) non albicans species were found. While other organisms were found in 10.6 %(n=183). The most common organism at the young age group i.e. less than 38 years is the candida albicans and non albicans species. Most of the vaginal infections 88%%(n=1487) were found in the patients with parity 3 or below and in 94.1%(n=1140) of these patients the organism was candida albicans. The relationship of the parity with the vaginitis is significant as after applying the Chi square test , the p value was found to be 0.001. Among the other organisms Strep Agalactae and E- Coli lead the list. Conclusion: Candida albicans and the non albicans were the most common infections found in all age groups. We emphasize the importance of integrating the diagnostic tools for the proper diagnosis of the causative organism to improve the diagnosis and management instead of going for the empirical treatment of the patients presenting with the vaginitis. Key words: vulvitis, vaginitis, vulvovaginitis, candidiasis, non albicans candidiasis.