One-week treatment of chlamydia-positive urethritis with doxycycline and tetracycline chloride in males

Abstract

65 patients with chlamydia-positive urethritis were treated with doxycycline and 59 with tetracycline chloride 1 g/day for one week. All steady sexual partners of these patients were treated with the same regimen during the same period. At control visits 2 and 3 weeks after the beginning of the treatment, all re-examined doxycycline-treated patients and all except 4 tetracycline-treated patients showed clinical cure and were free from signs of urethritis in the microscopical examination of Gram-stained smears from the urethra. Isolation of C. trachomatis was positive in 7 of the doxycycline-treated and 10 of the tetracycline-treated patients at the first control visit and in one more tetracycline-treated patient at the second control visit. The study stresses the importance of attempts to isolate C. trachomatis in cases without clinical or microscopical evidence of nongonococcal urethritis at control visits after short-term treatment with tetracyclines. The present investigation indicates that this is true also in cases in which all steady sexual partners are treated simultaneously.