Risk factors for tubal infertility. Influence of history of prior pelvic inflammatory disease.

In order to explore possible etiologic differences between tubal infertility in women who had been physician-diagnosed as having pelvic inflammatory disease ("overt" PID) and in women who had not ("silent" pelvic inflammatory disease), we made use of self-reported data from a large, population-based, case-control study of infertility in King County, Washington. Responses from 33 infertile women with no history of physician-reported PID and 129 infertile women with such a history were compared to those of 501 fertile women. No cultures or blood for antibody titers were obtained.