BACKGROUND:

Pelvic inflammatory disease and its complications, such as tubo-ovarian abscesses, affect thousands of women every year and leave innumerable sequelae: chronic pain, infertility, ectopic pregnancy, etc. The treatment and early detection of these abscesses can lead to a substantial improvement in their outcome and in the quality of life of patients.

CLINICAL CASE:

A 33-year-old female patient attended the emergency department for abdominal pain and associated diarrhea, with pain on palpation in the hypogastrium and mild abdominal defense. Transvaginal and abdominal ultrasound revealed several tubo-ovarian abscesses. On admission to the hospital, she was treated with antibiotics, without improvement, so surgical intervention was decided. Microbiological study of the abscesses reported Vibrio cholerae, with hematogenous dissemination due to contiguity of the intestinal infection.

CONCLUSIONS:

The overlapping of symptoms and the possibility of discovering pathogens different from the usual ones is possible; this is why it is necessary to treat patients with an integral perspective and not only from gyneco-obstetrics. In Spain, cholera is a notifiable disease; in 2018 only two cases were recorded, one of them the one reported here. In the Spanish environment it is a rarity and, therefore, of complex diagnosis and treatment.

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