Word: gonorrhea
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...most people, venereal disease means either syphilis or gonorrhea. But, in fact, the most common venereal disease in America today is one that has been so overlooked by both the public and doctors that a British expert has dubbed it "the Cinderella of sexually transmissible infections." The clinical name of the Cinderella disease: nongonococcal urethritis...
Urethritis is an inflammation of the urethra, the channel carrying urine from the bladder. In gonorrhea victims, it is caused by the gonococcus bacterium. But in a majority of cases of NGU, no gonococcus can be found-hence the name nongonococcal urethritis. Though the cause of NGU cannot always be determined, researchers have in recent years identified a culprit in about half the cases: a tiny bacterium called Chlamydia trachomatis, the same microbe that causes trachoma, an eye disease...
Public health experts say that NGU is increasing at an epidemic rate, far faster than gonorrhea. It is now the most common sexually transmitted disease in developed countries. Though the true incidence of NGU is unknown in the U.S., in part because physicians here are not required to report cases, the Center for Disease Control estimates that between 4 million and 9 million Americans are afflicted. NGU is noted most often in young, single, sexually active whites from the middle and upper classes. Says Dr. William McCormack of Harvard Medical School: "Almost all of the urethritis that is seen...
Despite the NGU epidemic, gonorrhea, which generally attacks the poor, blacks and other less privileged members of society, receives swifter and more comprehensive care. The reason, in part, is that the symptoms of NGU, though uncomfortable, are generally relatively mild compared with those of gonorrhea; male victims sometimes feel they can defer medical attention. Women are usually unaware that they are infected. Doctors, too, are at fault. Some still are not familiar with NGU and confuse it with gonorrhea, resulting in inappropriate treatment...
Indeed, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between NGU and gonorrhea by physical examination alone (though gonorrhea tends to produce a yellowish discharge). Because the technique for culturing chlamydia is not yet widely available, doctors diagnose NGU by examining a smear or culture of discharge for the presence of gonococci. If none are there, the disease is NGU. Unlike gonorrhea, which usually responds to penicillin, NGU is treated with tetracycline or erythromycin...