A comparative study of the treatment of tularemia with immune serum, hyperimmune serum and streptomycin

Abstract

Treatment of tularemia patients with immune serum before the end of the second week of disease induced significant reductions in mortality and in all aspects of morbidity. Greater reductions in morbidity were effected by treatment with hyperimmune serum or streptomycin. Of the agents studied only streptomycin and hyperimmune serum reduced the mean duration of disease to less than 2.5 months if treatment was given later than the second week. A comparative study of therapy-to-recovery intervals indicated that the nature of the disease imposed limits on the results obtainable by all forms of therapy. The study suggests that these limits have been just about reached with respect to serum therapy but not with respect to streptomycin therapy. It also indicates that future comparisons should demonstrate a superior effectiveness of streptomycin in diminishing morbidity; and, since it is already shown to be a better agent for treatment of the desperately ill patient, that streptomycin will become the treatment of choice for tularemia.