Figure 1.

Key challenges to pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and infertility diagnosis: 1) limited clinical diagnostic options when patients present with acute symptoms of PID in the emergency department, 2) economic and geographical limitations in accessing diagnostic services for evaluating reproductive sequelae, 3) stigma of STI and reproductive sequelae serving as obstacles to diagnostic testing, 4) an expanding list of potentially causative sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and overlapping differential syndromes with reproductive sequelae, 5) and the need for a coordinated research effort to systematically evaluate accessible, affordable, and non-invasive biomarkers of STI-induced reproductive sequelae using gold-standard, well-defined specimens and associated clinical data.