Treatment
There are many kinds of effective drugs. This is just a short overview of a few of the different methods of treatments.
Intestinal Infection: Usually nitroimidazole derivatives are used because they are highly effective against the trophozoite form of the amoeba. Since they have little effect on amoeba cysts, usually this treatment is followed by an agent (such as paromomycin or diloxanide furoate) that acts on the organism in the lumen.
Liver abscess: In addition to targeting organisms in solid tissue, primarily with drugs like metronidazole and chloroquine, treatment of liver abscess must include agents that act in the lumen of the intestine (as in the preceding paragraph) to avoid re-invasion. Surgical drainage is usually not necessary except when rupture is imminent.
Asymptomatic Patients: For asymptomatic patients (otherwise known as carriers, who do not receive symptoms), non endemic areas should be treated by paromomycin, and other treatments include diloxanide furoate and iodoquinol. There have been problems with the use of iodoquinol and iodochlorhydroxyquin, so their use is not recommended. Diloxanide furoate can also be used by mildly symptomatic persons who are just passing cysts.
Read more about this topic: Entamoeba Histolytica
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“[17th-century] Puritans were the first modern parents. Like many of us, they looked on their treatment of children as a test of their own self-control. Their goal was not to simply to ensure the child’s duty to the family, but to help him or her make personal, individual commitments. They were the first authors to state that children must obey God rather than parents, in case of a clear conflict.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Judge Ginsburg’s selection should be a model—chosen on merit and not ideology, despite some naysaying, with little advance publicity. Her treatment could begin to overturn a terrible precedent: that is, that the most terrifying sentence among the accomplished in America has become, “Honey—the White House is on the phone.””
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)