Clinical Management of Early Syphilis

Authors and Disclosures

Katherine M Holman* and Edward W Hook III
Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA

Financial and competing interests disclosure
The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending or royalties.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

* Author for correspondence
holmkm@uab.edu

Sidebar

Key Issues

• Long-acting penicillin remains the recommended treatment for early syphilis, and in the case of pregnant women, the only acceptable treatment.

• Alternative effective therapies have been explored, but have their own limitations: ceftriaxone requires parenteral therapy and has the potential for cross-reactions in penicillin allergy, azithromycin resistance is increasing and concern for treatment failure exists.

• Follow-up relies on decline in serologic tests titers; management of patients who remain serofast is a point of clinical concern.