Effective treatment of gonorrhoea

Effective therapy of gonorrhoea has changed drastically over the years, reflecting the progessive acquisition of relative antibiotic resistance by the causative organism. Although in the US. th 1974 USPHS recommendations are the best guidelines for management at present, recent epidemiological trends may obviate some of these provisions. The most important of these trends is the emergence of R-factor carrying strains capable of producing penicillinase, thereby making these strains absolutely resistant to clinically achievable levels of penicillin. This review analyses this problem in the context of reasonable therapeutic goals and also discusses optimum management of patients with such complications as pharyngeal infection, pelvic inflammatory disease and disseminated gonococcal infection.