Opinion – Julio Abramczyk: A serious asymptomatic disease

Since its discovery by Fleming in 1928 and after World War II, when it was introduced into the population’s therapeutic arsenal, penicillin has had its moments of glory.

It served intensively even for the unnecessary treatment of the flu, but at the time it solved the problem of the spread of syphilis in Brazil.

Over time, new and better antibiotics emerged, but penicillin remained useful only in the treatment of syphilis. And even with the many years gone by, it is still the main indication for the disease.

Currently, the change in customs in relations between the sexes, the same or different, has allowed the World Health Organization to assess that, globally, more than 1 million diseases are sexually transmitted, especially chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis.

In the case of syphilis, its causative agent, the bacterium Treponema pallidumhas been diagnosed along with the HIV virus.

Recently, Claudio Queniti Hirai and colleagues from the State University of Maringá, Paraná, reported in the journal of the Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine a study on the concomitant presence of the two conditions in patients.

Therefore, they recommend routine laboratory tests for the early diagnosis of asymptomatic neurosyphilis infections.

Ricardo Nitrini and collaborators from Hospital das Clínicas de São Paulo reported, in 2010, in the journal Demência e Neuropsicologia, the presence of several neuropsychiatric syndromes caused by untreated syphilis: neurosyphilis, a consequence in areas where the diagnosis and treatment of syphilis is not are carried out.