The efficacy of
ceftriaxone 250 mg given as a single intramuscular dose to treat genitourinary and pharyngeal gonorrhoea is compared with the outcome of the Danish standard treatment for uncomplicated genitourinary gonorrhoea,
pivampicillin 1.4 g and
probenecid 1 g, both given by mouth. The study comprised 327 patients for whom the diagnosis of gonorrhoea was made by microscopy of a
methylene blue stained smear at their first visit to the clinic and for whom the diagnosis was later confirmed by culture of Neisseria gonorrhoeae. One hundred and seventy patients with genitourinary gonorrhoea (18 with and 152 without concomitant pharyngeal
infection) were treated with
ceftriaxone. One hundred and fifty seven (17 with and 140 without concomitant pharyngeal
infection) were treated with
pivampicillin. One week
after treatment N gonorrhoeae was isolated from none of 18, 1/152, (1%), 11/17 (65%), and 6/140 (4%) patients, respectively. At a second attendance two weeks
after treatment no further treatment failure was found. During the study period, a further 52 patients with pharyngeal
infection (with or without concomitant genitourinary
infection) that was shown by culture only were treated with a single
intramuscular injection of 250 mg
ceftriaxone. No treatment failure was observed in this group. Only minor
adverse drug reactions were seen.
Ceftriaxone 250 mg as a single
intramuscular injection is therefore safe and effective in treating gonorrhoea, including pharyngeal
infection.