Question:hard
Which of the following statements is TRUE regarding Chlamydia?
Which of the following statements is TRUE regarding Chlamydia?
Show Hint
It is an obligate intracellular organism that usually causes silent infection.
Updated On: Jun 24, 2026
- Culture of endocervical discharge can be used for isolation of the organism
- Patients using OCPs are at higher risk for Chlamydia infection
- Most genital Chlamydia infections are asymptomatic
- Penicillin is the drug of choice
Show Solution
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
Judge each statement against core microbiology and clinical facts about Chlamydia trachomatis, an obligate intracellular organism and the commonest bacterial STI.
Take the natural history first. The defining clinical feature is silence: most infected people, women in particular, have no symptoms, which is precisely why screening matters and why untreated disease quietly progresses to pelvic inflammatory disease, tubal damage, infertility, and ectopic pregnancy. This statement is correct.
Now dismantle the rest. Because the bacterium can only multiply inside host cells, you cannot grow it on a routine culture of cervical discharge; diagnosis relies on cell culture or, far more commonly, nucleic acid amplification testing, so the plain culture claim is wrong. Treatment is azithromycin or doxycycline, not penicillin, since the organism lacks the usual cell-wall target that penicillin attacks, so that option is wrong too. The link with oral contraceptive use is not the accepted principal risk factor; risk is driven mainly by sexual exposure and young age.
Note the printed answer key chose the OCP option, but that is medically unsound. The genuinely true statement is the asymptomatic nature of genital chlamydial infection, so the corrected answer is that most cases are asymptomatic.
\[\boxed{\text{Most genital Chlamydia infections are asymptomatic}}\]
Take the natural history first. The defining clinical feature is silence: most infected people, women in particular, have no symptoms, which is precisely why screening matters and why untreated disease quietly progresses to pelvic inflammatory disease, tubal damage, infertility, and ectopic pregnancy. This statement is correct.
Now dismantle the rest. Because the bacterium can only multiply inside host cells, you cannot grow it on a routine culture of cervical discharge; diagnosis relies on cell culture or, far more commonly, nucleic acid amplification testing, so the plain culture claim is wrong. Treatment is azithromycin or doxycycline, not penicillin, since the organism lacks the usual cell-wall target that penicillin attacks, so that option is wrong too. The link with oral contraceptive use is not the accepted principal risk factor; risk is driven mainly by sexual exposure and young age.
Note the printed answer key chose the OCP option, but that is medically unsound. The genuinely true statement is the asymptomatic nature of genital chlamydial infection, so the corrected answer is that most cases are asymptomatic.
\[\boxed{\text{Most genital Chlamydia infections are asymptomatic}}\]
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