Abstract
In modern society, 75% of all women worldwide have had vaginitis at least once in their lives. The vagina has a dynamic microbial ecosystem with varying vaginal pH levels. An imbalance in that ecosystem can alter the vaginal pH and tip the scale to the point of causing issues, such as vaginitis, that require medical attention. Although vaginitis is not an incurable disease, it causes discomfort and pain that disrupt women’s daily lives. The most common causes of vaginitis include bacterial vaginosis, trichomoniasis, and vulvovaginal candidiasis. In this review, we discuss the causes, diagnostic methods, and symptoms of different types of vaginitis, the relationship of vaginitis to the prevalence of other diseases, issues associated with recurrent vaginitis and the immune system, and a variety of effective available treatments. In our article, we summarize the relationship of pH with the vaginal ecosystem, discuss the associated factors of vaginal pH, and finally introduce the different available vaginal pH self-test products.
Highlights
The vagina serves as an outside-communicating channel with the functions of draining menstruation and childbirth delivery
Many factors may lead to changes or imbalances in the vaginal pH value, including vaginal infections, aging, sexual activity, and vaginal douching [4]
Vaginitis is caused by bacterial vaginosis, vulvovaginal candidiasis, or trichomoniasis [16]
Summary
The vagina serves as an outside-communicating channel with the functions of draining menstruation and childbirth delivery. Lactobacilli can produce an acidic environment in the vagina, which is designed to protect women from sexually transmitted pathogens and opportunistic infections [5]. If these normal flora such as Lactobacilli are absent or significantly reduced, the vaginal ecosystem will become imbalanced, and other microorganism or bacteria inside vagina may become overgrown, leading to vaginitis. Score is a scoring system that calculates the relative number of bacterial morphologies under Gram-stained vaginal discharge smears to diagnose bacterial vaginosis [9] For both abovementioned diagnostic criteria, the vaginal fluid pH is a useful and unique marker for vaginitis.
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