[Amebic liver abscess. Treatment with metronidazole by the intravenous route]

This is a report of the clinical characteristics and therapeutic response to treatment of 51 patients with hepatic amebic abscess, studied at a general hospital in a two year period. In this group of patients without complications, the 100% cure was achieved in 5.5 days with metronidazole I.V.; the next effective regimen was metronidazole. I.V. plus emetine I.M., that gave a 100% cure in 7.4 days, so it became obvious that other kind of treatment or the addition of antibiotics are of no benefit and are potentially dangerous. The response to the different therapeutic regimens in this study, agree with what is known about the effectiveness of metronidazole used either by the oral or I.V. route in hepatic amebic abscess.