7thSpace.com – Author: Steven Weyers, Hans Verstraelen, Jan Gerris, Stan Monstrey, Guido Lopes dos Santos Santiago, Bart Saerens, Ellen De Backer, Geert Claeys, Mario Vaneechoutte and Rita Verhelst
The microflora of the penile skin-lined neovagina in male-to-female transsexuals is a recently created microbial niche which thus far has been characterized only to a very limited extent. Yet the knowledge of this microflora can be considered as essential to the follow-up of transsexual women.
The primary objective of this study was to map the neo-vaginal microflora in a group of 50 transsexual women for whom a neovagina was constructed by means of the inverted penile skin flap technique. Secondary objectives were to describe possible correlations of this microflora with multiple patients’ characteristics, such as sexual orientation, the incidence of vaginal irritation and malodorous vaginal discharge.