1987•Antimicrobial Agents and ChemotherapyOpen access
Praziquantel and clonorchiasis
Aifen Lin, Stanley W. Chapman
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Abstract
Praziquantel and ClonorchiasisThe article by Yangco et al. (4) on the efficacy of praziquantel is to be applauded for the care taken to study the drug in light-to-moderate liver fluke infections.However, we could not help noticing that the patients (73 Laotians and 1 Cambodian) were not from areas endemic for clonorchiasis but for opistorchiasis (1-3).The ova of these two trematode genera are often hard to distinguish from each other in clinical specimens (2, 3).We interpret the absence of mention of adult flukes in the article (4) to mean they were not available as an aid in differentiating the two diseases.Thus, we believe the study was of drug efficacy in opistorchiasis.The confusion may partially be explained by the frequency with which the two diseases, having a lot of similarities, are mentioned together in the medical literature.