TREATMENT OF CONCOMITANT EYE AND GENITAL CHLAMYDIAL INFECTION WITH ERYTHROMYCIN AND ROXITHROMYCIN

A single blind study of 10 days randomly allocated treatment with eryt hromycin (1000 mg/day) and roxithromycin (300 mg/day) in 14 (group A) and 13 (group B) adults, respectively, all with culture-proven chlamyd ial conjunctivitis was performed. For comparison, 14 days' treatment w ith 1 g erythromycin daily given to 35 adults (Group C) with chlamydia l conjunctivitis was also evaluated. Follow-up was made approximately one month after start of therapy. Only 2 of the 37 men and 1 of the 25 women studied; all of whom had signs of conjunctivitis, had noticed c oncomitant symptoms of infection from the genital tract. Nasopharyngea l cultures were chlamydia-positive in 7 (500%), 7 (54%) and 20 (57%) o f the patients in Group A, B and C, respectively, while for genital cu ltures the corresponding figures were 9 (64%), 8 (62%) and 23 (66%), r espectively. The course with erythromycin in group C cured the conjunc tivitis in 34 (97%) of the patients both clinically and microbiologica lly. Ten days' treatment with the same dose (Group A) did not eradicat e chlamydiae from the eye in one, from the nasopharynx in 5 and from t he genital tract in still another patient. The roxithromycin treatment (Group B) resulted in negative chlamydial cultures from the eyes in a ll 13 cases, while the nasopharyngeal and genital cultures were still positive in one patient each. The study showed that in spite of the ey e being cured by macrolide therapy, other sites like the nasopharynx a nd the genital tract may still be colonized, why sampling for C. trach omatis from these sites should be made in tests for cure in chlamydial conjunctivitis cases. The study did indicate that the two types of dr ugs used for 10 days gave equally unfavourable results with regard to cure of chlamydial conjunctivitis.