A single blind study of 10 days' randomly allocated treatment with
erythromycin (1000 mg/day) and
roxithromycin (300 mg/day) in 14 (group A) and 13 (group B) adults, respectively, all with culture-proven chlamydial
conjunctivitis was performed. For comparison, 14 days' treatment with 1 g
erythromycin daily given to 35 adults (Group C) with chlamydial
conjunctivitis was also evaluated. Follow-up was made approximately one month after start of
therapy. Only 2 of the 37 men and 1 of the 25 women studied, all of whom had signs of
conjunctivitis, had noticed concomitant symptoms of
infection from the genital tract. Nasopharyngeal cultures were chlamydia-positive in 7 (50%), 7 (54%) and 20 (57%) of the patients in Group A, B and C, respectively, while for genital cultures the corresponding figures were 9 (64%), 8 (62%) and 23 (66%), respectively. The course with
erythromycin in group C cured the
conjunctivitis in 34 (97%) of the patients both clinically and microbiologically. Ten days' treatment with the same dose (Group A) did not eradicate chlamydiae from the eye in one, from the nasopharynx in 5 and from the genital tract in still another patient. The
roxithromycin treatment (Group B) resulted in negative chlamydial cultures from the eyes in all 13 cases, while the nasopharyngeal and genital cultures were still positive in one patient each. The study showed that in spite of the eye being cured by
macrolide therapy, other sites like the nasopharynx and the genital tract may still be colonized, why sampling for C. trachomatis from these sites should be made in tests for cure in chlamydial
conjunctivitis cases.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)