Treatment of vaginal candidosis with natamycin and effect of treating the partner at the same time.

Thirty-three patients with vaginal candidosis were treated with natamycin vaginal tablets for 10 days and their partners were treated double-blind with natamycin cream/placebo cream. Follow-up examinations were carried out one week after the treatment was discontinued and again about one month later. The cure rate in patients having actively treated partners was 94%, not differing significantly from the cure rate of 88% in patients whose partners had been treated with placebo. One month after the treatment there was a high recurrence/re-infection rate, about 30% in both groups. Thus, treating the partners of patients with vaginal candidosis has no influence upon the therapeutic outcome or recurrence rate. The recurrence is presumably due to re-infection from the patient herself.