Fallacious failure rates in treatment of early syphilis.

Abstract

SOME will accept, some reject the following ideas, but most persons will reflect upon them and give them further thought. That is enough. During the last seven years much literature has accumulated on the treatment of early syphilis with penicillin. Generally speaking, the total dosage of penicillin has varied from a minimum of 300,000 units to a maximum of 10,000,000 units per patient. Published cumulative failure rates have varied from a minimum of 4 or 5% to a maximum of 50%. Practically all published data on failure rates have included cures listed as failures. Much stress has been placed by noted authorities on an intrinsic over-all failure rate of about 20% in the treatment of early syphilis with penicillin. With this conclusion, I am in complete disagreement, I contend that the failure rate is entirely too high. The purpose of this paper is to point out that the