Treatment of chlamydial urethritis in men and Chlamydia trachomatis-positive female partners: comparison of erythromycin and tetracycline in treatment courses of one week.

Seventy-one consecutive men who had Chlamydia trachomatis-positive nongonococcal urethritis were assigned randomly to treatment for one week with either tetracycline or erythromycin (1g daily). Seventy men completed the study. At follow-up, there were two therapeutic failures among 36 patients treated with erythromycin, and two failures among 34 patients treated with tetracycline. Twenty-four C. trachomatis-positive female contacts were randomly assigned to treatment regimens similar to those of the men. There was one treatment failure among 12 women treated with erythromycin, and no failure among 12 treated with tetracycline. In this study the urethral smears contained fewer than five leukocytes per high-power field in 16% of the C. trachomatis-positive men with symptoms suggestive of urethritis.