Alcoholism and syphilis in Marília, São Paulo, Brazil: prevalence, and hepatic changes

Abstract

The prevalence of syphilis in chronic alcoholics and the hepatic clinical and biochemical alterations were evaluated in patients with both entities. The prevalence of syphilis in patients with other psichyatric diagnosis was taken as control. The patients were asymptomatic or oligo-symptomatic with respect to hepatic alcoholic dysfunction or to any manifestation of the three clinical stages of syphilis. Alcoholics (206 patients) and patients with other psichyatric conditions (228 patients) were submitted to clinical examination and to quantitative serology for syphilis (Wasserman and VDRL), yielding 6.3% and 3.1% of seropo-sitivity, respectively. No statistically significant difference was observed between alcoholics of the seropositive or seronegative groups, as to the frequencies of clinical or biochemical alterations which would indicate hepatic alterations.