Every year, about 20 cases of staphylococcal toxic shock syndromes related to the use of tampons are reported in France. Characterized by multiple symptoms, including high fever and skin rashes, this syndrome can lead in the most extreme cases to multi-organ failure and death. Although its incidence remains rare, researchers from Inserm, CNRS, Hospices Civils de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and ENS de Lyon within the International Centre for Research in Infectiology (CIRI) and the National Reference Centre for Staphylococci have identified several risk factors. In particular, they show that wearing a tampon for more than six hours or during the night is associated with a higher risk of toxic shock syndrome. This study of 180 women, published in eClinicalMedecine on March 10, 2020, needs to be confirmed in a larger population and needs to be supplemented by toxicity tests, which would be the only way to prove a cause and effect relationship.

Source: Association of Characteristics of Tampon Use With Menstrual Toxic Shock Syndrome in France. Amaury Billon ; Marie-Paule Gustin ; Anne Tristan ; Thomas Bénet ; Julien Berthiller ; Claude Alexandre Gustave ; Philippe Vanhems ; Gerard Lina. eClinicalMedecine, march 2020, DOI : 10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100308