ANTIMICROBIAL TREATMENT OF PERTUSSIS

Patients with culture-positive pertussis in the paroxysmal state of the disease were treated with ampicillin, oxytetracycline, chloramphenicol, or erythromycin. No significant difference was noted in the subsequent course of illness when compared with that in untreated control patients. Ampicillin-treated patients remained culture positive for periods comparable to that in untreated control patients. Treatment with erythromycin, oxytetracycline, or chloramphenicol eliminated pertussis organisms from patients within a few days. Treatment with one of these drugs may thus render patients with pertussis, noninfectious. For this purpose, erythromycin appears to be the most effective of the 3 drugs studied. This drug may also be effective in prophylaxis against pertussis in exposed susceptible individuals, and in aborting or attenuating the illness when given to patients in the early preparoxysmal stage of the disease. Patients treated with pertussis hyperimmune globulin were compared with patients who were not but who had otherwise comparable treatment. There was no significant difference in the subsequent clinical course of illness or the time lapse before disappearance of pertussis organisms from the nasopharynx in the two groups. © 1969 The C. V. Mosby Company.