One-session treatment of gonorrhoea in males with procaine penicillin plus probenecid

Abstract

Summary Six hundred and thirteen male patients with acute uncomplicated gonorrhoea have been treated alternately with single injections of 1·2 mega-units of aqueous procaine penicillin alone or with the same dose and preparation of penicillin with an additional 1·0 g of probenecid given orally immediately prior to injection. Whether the failure rates were assessed on the basis of an absence of further sexual exposure or by classifying all recurrences within 1 or 2 weeks regardless of history as treatment failures the results were significantly better when probenecid was also given. The use of a single dose of probenecid is thus capable of maintaining the success of single injection procedures for the treatment of gonorrhoea based on procaine penicillin and thus represents a bulwark for the future should the powers of penicillin against the gonococcus in London deteriorate further.

Diagnostic treatment and reporting criteria for gonorrhoea in sexually transmitted disease clinics in England and Wales. 2: treatment and reporting criteria.

“…Cobbold et al (1970) and Rodin and Seth (1972) have reported substantially lower failure rates after treatment with 1 2 megaunits of procaine peni-cillin combined with probenecid than when the same dose is given without probenecid. A dose of 1 2 megaunits of procaine penicillin is a perfectly acceptable level of treatment, but, in view of this work, it should be combined with probenecid much more readily than when using higher dosages when a certain loss of penicillin through renal excretion is less likely to affect the chances of eventual cure.…”