Asymptomatic gonorrhea in men: caused by gonococci with unique nutritional requirements.

In a retrospective case-control study, gonococci with nutritional requirements for arginine, hypoxanthine, and uracil were recovered from 24 of 25 men with asymptomatic gonorrhea and 10 of 25 men with symptomatic gonorrhea (P = .0001). These strains represent a smaller proportion of gonococcal isolate from blacks than from whites. Asymptomatic urethral infection is important in the epidemiology of gonorrhea, particularly among whites.