Treatment of Schistosomiasis Mansoni with Antimony Lithium Thiomalate (Anthiomaline): Final Report 1,2

Abstract

Summary and Conclusion 1. Thirty-nine male Puerto Rican veterans ranging in age from twenty-four to fifty-nine years, and suffering from schistosomiasis mansoni were treated with a trivalent antimony compound, antimony lithium thiomalate, better known as Anthiomaline. The patients were hospitalized during treatment and for follow-up study. Thirty-eight individuals received the same amount of the drug, that is, 3 cc. of the solution (30 mgs. of antimony, every other day for a total of ten injections, containing 300 milligrams of antimony). One other case received a total of 60 cc. Anthiomaline, divided in two courses of 30 cc. each, the second course being administered five months after the first. 2. In twenty-two patients the stools were free of ova prior to the completion of treatment. Dead ova were detected in the stools at the end of therapy in three other cases. Stool examination remained negative for ova in thirty-eight of the thirty-nine individuals studied, during a period of one to three weeks following completion of treatment. 3. Follow-up studies beginning one month and extending to seventeen months after completion of treatment were performed in thirty cases. Twenty of these (66.6 per cent) had positive stools for Schistosoma ova and in ten other cases (33.3 per cent) no ova were detected. Ten patients complained of recurrence of gastrointestinal disturbances one to seventeen months after treatment. 4. Toxic manifestations occurred in fifteen of the thirty-nine individuals treated. These were never severe and in no instance they warranted interruption of treatment. 5. We wish to emphasize the importance of follow-up examination of the stools at frequent intervals in the final evaluation of any drug employed in the treatment of schistosomiasis mansoni. 6. Anthiomaline, when given in one course of 30 cc. to thirty-eight individuals, and in the amount of 60 cc. to another case, is not a very efficient drug in the treatment of mild, asymptomatic or moderately severe chronic infections with Schistosoma mansoni, as determined by the presence of ova in the stools.