Doxycycline in the Treatment of Non-Gonococcal Urethritis

Cho, Jin Seon; Lee, Sang Kon

Abstract

A retrospective study of 152 heterosexual male patients with non-gonococcal urethritis (NGU) was carried out to find out the efficacious treatment of NGU. We obtained urethral swabs for analysis by Chlamydiazyme (Abbott, North Chicago, IL) and Gram's stain from all patients. We classified the patients into two groups: 72 patients with no history of treatment (group I), and 80 patients with recurrent or persistent NGU (group II). Doxycycline was initially administered to 130 patients about two weeks. Ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, or doxycycline as second-line antibiotics were used in the patients with recurrent or persistent NGU after treatment with doxycycline. C. trachomatis was detected in 50 (32.9%) of the 152 patients: a larger proportion (40.3%) of the group I than the group II (26.3%) was chlamydia-positive, but the difference between two groups was not significant (p>0.05). After treatment with doxycycline, a higher cure rate was observed in the chlamydia-positive men (72.5% ; 29 of 40 patients) than in the chlamydia- negative men (50.0% ; 45 of 90 patients): in 90 chlamydia-negative men, 27 (75.0%) of 36 patients of the group I and 18 (33.3%) of 64 patients of the group II was cured (p<0.05). Doxycycline was efficacious for the chlamydia-positive men. But the patients with recurrent or persistent chlamydia-negative NGU were tend to be resistant to doxycycline therapy.