Alcoolismo e sífilis: prevalência e alterações clínicas e bioquímicas hepáticas

Abstract

The prevalence of syphilis in chronic alcoholics and the hepatic clinical and biochemical alterations were evaluated in patients with both entities. The prevalence of syphilis in patients with other psychiatric diagnosis was taken as control. The patients were asymptomatic or oligosymptomatic with respect to hepatic alcoholic dysfunction or to any manifestation of the three clinical stages of syphilis. Alcoholics (206 patients) and patients with other psychiatric conditions (228 patients) were submitted to clinical examination and to quantitative serology for syphilis (Wasserman and VDRL), yielding 6.3% and 3.1% of seropositivity, respectively. No statistically significant difference was observed between alcoholics of the seropositive or seronegative groups, as to the frequencies of clinical or biochemical alterations which would indicate hepatic alterations.