A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY OF THE VAGINAL FLORA OVER A MENSTRUAL-CYCLE

Healthy female volunteers participated in an anonymous study to monito r vaginal flora by taking daily vaginal samples and making a smear for later Gram-staining, as well as recording information on genital symp toms, sexual activity, contraceptive and bathing practices. A modifica tion of Spiegel's criteria was used to categorize the Gram-stained sme ars, an intermediate category between normal flora and bacterial vagin osis (BV) being recognized. Of the 22 volunteers who completed the stu dy, one was excluded because of pregnancy. Of the remaining 21 women, 10 (48%) had a normal flora throughout the study, 4 (19%) had an abnor mal flora throughout and 7 (33%) had a basically normal flora which un derwent a change to either an intermediate flora in 5 women or fully d eveloped BV in 2 of them. in 5 (71%) of these women the change occurre d within the first 9 days of the cycle. Transient changes in the vagin al microbial flora occurred predominantly in the first part of the men strual cycle which suggests that in some women hormonal changes could have a role in the pathogenesis of bacterial vaginosis.