Regular emergency room screening reduces congenital syphilis: CROI 2024 highlights

 At the 2024 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) held last month, HIV.gov presented an innovative syphilis screening program designed to prevent congenital syphilis by Kimberly Stanford, an associate professor at the University of Chicago School of Medicine. Discussions were held with physicians and MPHs. She spoke with Miguel Gomez, director of HIV.gov. Watch their conversation:

Regular emergency room screening reduces congenital syphilis: CROI 2024 highlights

Routine syphilis screening in the emergency department is successful and reproducible

Chicago, like the rest of the country, has seen an increase in cases of syphilis and congenital syphilis in recent years. In response, Dr. Stanford and her team implemented a routine, non-targeted, opt-out syphilis screening program in the emergency department (ED) of a large urban hospital. A review of the records of all pregnant women presenting to the emergency department in the two years before and after the implementation of the screening program revealed a significant increase in the proportion screened for syphilis (from 6% to 50%). ). More importantly, the number of diagnosed cases of syphilis in pregnant women increased by 750% (from 2 to 15). None of the pregnant women who were diagnosed with syphilis during routine testing went to the emergency department with sexually transmitted infection (STI) symptoms, so the previous standard of care was not to test for syphilis. These results suggest that previous approaches have missed opportunities for diagnosing syphilis and preventing congenital syphilis. Congenital syphilis can be completely prevented by testing all pregnant women for syphilis and treating patients with syphilis and their sexual partners early in prenatal care. Dr. Stanford and his colleagues found that emergency room visits are more likely to lead to the detection of syphilis and congenital syphilis, as emergency rooms are often the primary source of care in many communities with limited access to health care. It was concluded that this could be an important opportunity for prevention.

Dr. Stanford University says their research shows that a growing number of emergency room patients are adopting routine HIV screening and that routine syphilis screening can be easily supplemented with important results. He said there was. “This intervention reaches pregnant women and has made a huge difference in the number of pregnant women who are actually tested and diagnosed.”

Check out an overview of his research. "Regular screening in the emergency room increases syphilis diagnoses in pregnant patients," Stanford and colleagues wrote. I leave you with a disclaimer. Please see the poster presentation of the results. I leave you with a disclaimer.

This research was supported by funding from the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Syphilis and other sexually transmitted infections, HIV, hepatitis C, and substance use disorders can be co-occurring diseases, influenced by social and structural determinants of health, and are syndemic, or two or more diseases. are part of the clustering and interaction of ... resulting in an excessive burden of disease in the population.

Learn about the rise in congenital syphilis in the United States and the need for tailored prevention approaches to address disparities in neonatal syphilis. Read about the CDC Neonatal Syphilis Case in the United States. They continue to increase, increasing 10 times in 10 years. Stay tuned for more updates on CROI research.

HIV.gov shared additional interviews with federal HIV leaders, participating researchers, and community members at CROI 2024. All of this can be found on HIV.gov's social media channels, as well as blog summaries available under the CROI topic tag.



About CROI
From March 3 to 6, 2024, more than 3,600 HIV and infectious disease researchers gathered at CROI. CROI is an annual academic conference on the latest research that helps accelerate global progress in the response to HIV and other infectious diseases, including sexually transmitted infections. More than 1,000 original research summaries were published. For more information, please visit the conference website. End disclaimer.