Clinical features of venereal lymphogranuloma course

Background. Venereal lymphogranuloma (VLG) is sexually transmitted disease, causative agents of which are Chlamydia trachomatis, be-longs to L1, L2 and L3 (C. trachomatis-LGV) serovars and have tropism for lymphoid tissue. The disease has been registered worldwide since 2003 with the tendency to growth in recent times. The feature of disease is that in 90% of cases it manifests as proctocolitis of varying severity and men, who have sex with men (MSM), are predisposed to be infected. Most commonly, VLG manifests under the mask of inflammatory bowel diseases, as well as it can imitate adenocarcinoma and lymphoma of rectum that requires careful differential diagnosis. A wide prev-alence of anorectal chlamydial infection among MSM of the Moscow Region in the Russian Federation has been established. Detailed description and analysis of clinical course features, algorithms of VLG diagnosis and treatment are not presented despite a series of subsequent publications on the disease in our country. Objective. To study the clinical manifestations of anorectal C. trachomatis-LGV infection among patients seeking coloproctological treatment. Material and methods. The number of patients equal 855 was examined. All patients were examined by a coloproctologist and tested for DNA of sexually transmitted infections’ causative agents using a real-time polymerase chain reaction. Patients with co-infections were not includ-ed in the study.Results. Anorectal C. trachomatis-LGV has been revealed in 156 persons. Among them, symptomatic course of disease has been found in 155 (99.4%) patients. Proctitis has been diagnosed in 153 (98.1%) patients, including erosive-ulcerative type in 147 (96.1%), in 34% (52) of cases it has been associated with mucositis of anal canal or perianal dermatitis. Complicated course has been revealed in 26 (16.7%) patients. Conclusion. The study describes a clinical course of VLG in MSM seeking coloproctological treatment. © 2024, Media Sphera Publishing Group. All rights reserved.