A test designed by UCLA researchers can pinpoint which people with gonorrhea will respond successfully to the inexpensive oral antibiotic ciprofloxacin, which had previously been sidelined over concerns the bacterium that causes the infection was becoming resistant to it. In research published online on August 7, 2020 in Clinical Infectious Diseases, a UCLA-led team found that of 106 subjects the test identified as having a strain of gonorrhea called wild-type gyrA serine, all were cured with a single dose of oral ciprofloxacin. Though the test has been available for three years, this is the first time it has been systematically studied in humans. The new test gives doctors more choices to treat the sexually transmitted infection and could help slow down the spread of drug-resistant gonorrhea, said Jeffrey Klausner, MD, MPH, the study’s lead author and a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. The article is titled “Resistance-Guided Treatment of Gonorrhea: A Prospective Clinical Study.” “Gonorrhea is one of the most common drug-resistant infections worldwide and is becoming harder to treat. Current treatment methods require an antibiotic injection, which is expensive and painful,” said Dr. Klausner, who is also an adjunct professor of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. “This new test could make it easier and safer to treat gonorrhea with different antibiotics, including one pill given by mouth. Using a pill instead of a shot would also make it easier and faster to treat sex partners of patients with gonorrhea,” he added.Login Or Register To Read Full Story