Histological Chorioamnionitis - Experience from a Tertiary Care Center

Background And Objectives: Chorioamnionitis (CA) mostly represents the presence of intra-amniotic infection. The features of the disease can be detected during histopathological examination of the delivered fetal membranes. The current study aims to explore the features of all histological chorioamnionitis cases received in the Pathology Department of a university hospital over a period of five years.

Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted between January 2015 and December 2019 and used data from 78 women with histologically confirmed chorioamnionitis. All data were gathered from the hospital information system. The SPSS software's statistical methods were used to show and analyze descriptive and categorical data.

Results: The selected patients had an average age of 36.18 ± 6.153 years (age range 21-50 years) and different stages of the disease: 29 (37.2%) in the first stage, 25 (32%) in the second stage and the remaining 24 (30.7%) subjects in the third stage. Nearly half of cases showed concomitant umbilical cord inflammation, whereas placental inflammation occurred much less frequently. The most common cause of chorioamnionitis was bacterial infection, where Streptococcus agalactiae was the most prevalent.

Conclusions: This study showed that the majority of histological chorioamnionitis were of mild intensity (stage 1). Many cases were associated with umbilical cord and, to a lesser extent, with placental inflammation. Bacteria were the most typical cause of chorioamnionitis. The most common strain was Streptococcus agalactiae.