A 23-year-old woman from Vanuatu presented to an Australian hospital with a 3-week history of a non-healing ulcer on the lower leg. A swab was submitted for a multiplex polymerase chain reaction designed to investigate genital ulcerative conditions. Haemophilus ducreyi was detected and the gene product was subsequently sequenced, confirming the diagnosis of cutaneous chancroid. The lesion respo...

Haemophilus ducreyi, the etiologic agent of the sexually transmitted disease chancroid, produces a cytolethal distending toxin (HdCDT) that inhibits mammalian cell proliferation. We investigated the effects of HdCDT on normal human endothelial cells and on tubule formation in an in vitro model of angiogenesis. Endothelial cells were arrested in the G2 phase of the cell cycle, and tubule formati...

We report the sensitivity and specificity of physical examination findings for diagnosing primary syphilis, chancroid, and genital herpes. The physical features of genital ulcers in 446 men were measured in accordance with a quantitative scale. Two hundred-twenty of these men had an established, single microbiological diagnosis. Forty-five (20%) had primary syphilis, 118 (54%) had chancroid, an...

Chancroid is an extremely infectious sexually transmitted disease (STD) caused by the bacterium Haemophilus ducreyi, prevalent in Africa, United States and in some parts of South Asia. Chancroid has been recognized as a cofactor for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission. So, there is a requirement to develop an efficient drug to combat chancroid, which can also diminish the HIV preval...

Haemophilus ducreyi is the causative agent of chancroid, one of the genital ulcerative diseases. H. ducreyi is the major cause of genital ulcer disease in Africa and Southeast Asia and is of increasing concern in the United States. Definitive diagnosis of chancroid requires the isolation and identification of H. ducreyi, but isolation of this organism is difficult and the available medium is no...

Of 110 males selected for review with possible chancroid, 96 were clinically diagnosed as having chancroid, 7 as having herpetic lesions, and 7 as having syphilis. Of the 96 patients diagnosed clinically as chancroid, 76 (79.2%) were culture positive for H. ducreyi. 9 (9.4%) of these 96 patients yielded Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV). Both HSV and H. ducreyi were isolated from 5 of the patients,...

In 44 consecutive patients 46 episodes of genital ulceration were studied. The presumptive clinical diagnosis was evaluated by extensive microbiological investigations. In 15 (33%) episodes the clinical diagnosis did not accord with the microbiological one. Chancroidal lesions were most commonly found to have other microbiological aetiology. Secondary invasion of treponemal or viral lesions by ...