Trichomoniasis medical therapy
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
Trichomoniasis can usually be cured with the prescription drug, metronidazole, given by mouth in a single dose. The symptoms of trichomoniasis in infected men may disappear within a few weeks without treatment. However, an infected man, even a man who has never had symptoms or whose symptoms have stopped, can continue to infect or re-infect a female partner until he has been treated. Therefore, both partners should be treated at the same time to eliminate the parasite. Persons being treated for trichomoniasis should avoid sex until they and their sex partners complete treatment and have no symptoms. Metronidazole can be used by pregnant women.
Having trichomoniasis once does not protect a person from getting it again. Following successful treatment, people can still be susceptible to re-infection.
Medical Therapy
Pharmacotherapy
- Metronidazole: 2 g orally in a single dose, or
- Tinidazole: 2 g orally in a single dose
- Alternative Regimen: Metronidazole 500 mg orally twice a day for 7 days
Patients should be advised to avoid consuming alcohol during treatment with metronidazole or tinidazole. Abstinence from alcohol use should continue for 24 hours after completion of metronidazole or 72 hours after completion of tinidazole.
The nitroimidazoles comprise the only class of drugs useful for the oral or parenteral therapy of trichomoniasis. Of these drugs, metronidazole and tinidazole are available in the United States and are cleared by the FDA for the treatment of trichomoniasis. In randomized clinical trials, the recommended metronidazole regimens have resulted in cure rates of approximately 90%–95%, and the recommended tinidazole regimen has resulted in cure rates of approximately 86%–100%. The appropriate treatment of sex partners might increase these reported rates. Randomized controlled trials comparing single 2 g doses of metronidazole and tinidazole suggest that tinidazole is equivalent to, or superior to, metronidazole in achieving parasitologic cure and resolution of symptoms (170). Treatment of patients and sex partners results in relief of symptoms, microbiologic cure, and reduction of transmission.
Metronidazole gel is considerably less efficacious for the treatment of trichomoniasis (<50%) than oral preparations of metronidazole. Topically applied antimicrobials (e.g., metronidazole gel) are unlikely to achieve therapeutic levels in the urethra or perivaginal glands; therefore, use of the gel is not recommended. Several other topically applied antimicrobials occasionally have been used for treatment of trichomoniasis; however, these preparations probably do not have greater efficacy than metronidazole gel.
Follow-Up
Follow-up is unnecessary for men and women who become asymptomatic after treatment or who are initially asymptomatic. Some strains of T. vaginalis can have diminished susceptibility to metronidazole; however, infections caused by the majority of these organisms respond to tinidazole or higher doses of metronidazole. Low-level metronidazole resistance has been identified in 2%–5% of cases of vaginal trichomoniasis. High-level resistance is rare. Tinidazole has a longer serum half-life and reaches higher levels in genitourinary tissues than metronidazole. In addition, many T. vaginalis isolates have lower minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) to tinidazole than metronidazole.
If treatment failure occurs with metronidazole 2 g single dose and reinfection is excluded, the patient can be treated with metronidazole 500 mg orally twice daily for 7 days or tinidazole 2 g single dose. For patients failing either of these regimens, clinicians should consider treatment with tinidazole or metronidazole at 2 g orally for 5 days. If these therapies are not effective, further management should be discussed with a specialist. The consultation should ideally include determination of the susceptibility of T. vaginalis to metronidazole and tinidazole. Consultation and T. vaginalis susceptibility testing is available from CDC (telephone: 770-488-4115; website: http://www.cdc.gov/std).