Spiramycin in the Treatment of Acute Gonorrhoea.

Introduction The treatment of gonorrhoea in Denmark is as yet no serious therapeutic problem, as the majority of gonococcal infections can be cured by penicillin. Nevertheless, in an increasing number ofcases a higher dosage of penicillin is required than was the case just a few years ago. At the Dermato-venereological Department of the University Hospital, a single treatment dose of 300,000 units of procaine penicillin is still used in the routine treatment of acute uncomplicated gonorrhoea. With this dose, the cure rate in 1961 was found to be approximately 98 per cent. for patients infected with penicillin-sensitive gonococci (the limit between strains with normal and reduced susceptibility was set at an in vitro concentration of 0038 ,±g./ml.), while 300,000 units of procaine penicillin cured only 62 per cent. of those patients who were infected with gonococcal strains of reduced sensitivity (Schmidt, 1962). Penicillin is still considered to be the drug of choice for the treatment of gonorrhoea, as it is essentially non-toxic, and when used in adequate doses results in a high cure rate. Other treatment schedules have been used, for example, penicillin in larger doses or a combination of sodium penicillin and procaine penicillin, and have given excellent results (Nielsen