Short-term follow-up studies in amoebic dysentery
- 1 January 1967
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
- Vol. 61 (6) , 765-768
- https://doi.org/10.1016/0035-9203(67)90031-4
Abstract
The findings at discharge and at 1-month follow-up were compared in groups of patients with acute amoebic dysentery who had received either direct-acting amoebicides [emetine or quinoline compounds], broad-spectrum antibiotics [tetracyclines] or a combination of these drugs. Among patients discharged as cured, follow-up revealed no significant difference between those who had received direct-acting amoebic ides and those treated with antibiotics in the incidence of relapse, conversion to cyst-passing and recurrence of rectal ulceration. There was, however, a high relapse rate among patients treated with antibiotics and rendered symptom-free disappearance of amoebae, but with persistent rectal ulceration on discharge. Among patients who had become asymptomatic cyst-passers there was a similar and high relapse rate in both those who had received direct-acting amoebicides and in those treated with antibiotics. Amoebic dysentery should be treated with the combination of a direct-acting, systemically effective amoebicide and a broad-spectrum antibiotic.This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: