Sexually transmitted diseases: Granuloma inguinale, lymphogranuloma venereum, chancroid, and infectious syphilis

The complete schedules for the treatment of syphilis as recommended by the Venereal Disease Control Advisory Committee of the Center for Disease Control are available from many scources, e.g., city and county public health departments. The current recommendation for the treatment of infectious syphilis is 2,4 million units of benzathine penicillin given a single intramuscular injection. Many physicians supplement this with an additional dose of 2.4 million units 1 week following the first. For those individuals who are allergic to penicillin, the recommended treatment consists of tetracycline or erythromycin (500 mg four times a day for 15 days). For all practical purposes, these therapeutic approaches offer complete cure of infectious syphilis. There are however, rare disturbing instances in which motile spirochetes are found in human tissue following what is presumed to be adequate treatment. Although this is obviously of theoretical concern, it has not yet become a problem clinically.