Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) is the inflammation of the female upper reproductive tract that most commonly spreads from the vagina or cervix. Many pathogens are able to cause PID, with the most common being Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Even though the inflammation may be asymptomatic, the typical clinical presentation includes lower abdominal pain, adnexal tenderness upon physical examination and abnormal vaginal or cervical discharge, and laboratory findings may show elevated markers of systemic inflammation. The cornerstone of PID treatment is antibiotic therapy which often has to be administered empirically, without knowing the pathogen that caused the inflammation, to prevent the development of long-term sequelae of PID, most notably higher risk for ectopic pregnancy and infertility. Relevant world and European treatment guidelines recommend a variety of parenteral and oral antibiotic regimens for the treatment of PID, depending on the microbial cause of inflammation, severity of the disease and the potential need for hospital stay. As the first line of therapy the most commonly recommended antibiotics are cephalosporins in combination with doxycycline, with the possible addition of metronidazole. Besides those drugs, few other groups of antibiotics can be effectively used to treat PID. In order to lower the incidence of PID, both locally and globally, it is necessary to act preventively by better controlling and detecting sexually transmitted infections, and by educating the population on the responsible sexual behavior.