A Clinical Trial of Nitazoxanide and Albendazole in Biliary Ascariasis

Abstract

A clinical trial was conducted in 2009 to evaluate the efficacy of albendazole and nitazoxanide in case of biliary ascariasis patients admitted in the medicine ward of Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH), Bangladesh. The clinical trial was carried out between two study groups, individually group A and Group B, where group A patients were treated with Albendazole and group B patients with Nitazoxanide. Albendazole was administered (400mg) tablet single dose and Nitazoxanide (500mg) tablet were twelve hourly for 3 days. Relieve of pain time after taking antihelminthics were recorded and serial ultrasonograms (USG) were performed to observe the worm present or absent in biliary tree. Most of the respondents were within 18 to 35 years age group and it was about 68%. The patients were admitted with different clinical complications where most of them complaints of vomitting. Among the total respondents, about 87% were cured, while only 13% were not cured off their diseases. It was also noted that, the cure rate is more in nitazoxanide (89 Vs 85%), while the percentage of not cured individuals were more in albendazole (15 Vs 11%). The association between study groups and treatment outcome was not found to be statistically significant (P>0.05). There were no significant adverse effects or abnormalities in clinical chemistry values.