Clinical Study of Eradicated and Resistant Patients to Treatment with Ivermectin for Strongyloidiasis

: We treated 70 patients with strongyloidiasis (41 males and 29 females) with ivermectin (IVM), and obtained the following results: 1. The eradication rates at 1-2 months, 3-4 months and 5-6 months after treatment were 90.7% (49 of 54 patients), 100.0% (47 of 47 patients) and 95.7% (45 of 47 patients), responsively. Twelve patients were resistant (non-responsive) to treatment. 2. When compared to patients whose parasites were completely eradicated, the resistant patients showed the following results: 1) Incidence of symptoms observed before treatment was significantly lower (50.0% vs. 84.5%). 2) Positive rate of anti-HTLV-I antibody was significantly higher (66.7% vs. 20.7%). 3) Blood eosinophil counts before treatment were significantly lower (266.6 +/- 117.2/mm3 vs. 533.2 +/- 429.7/mm3). 4) Serum IgE levels before treatment were significantly lower (217.2 +/- 442.9 IU/ml vs. 1,076.8 +/- 2,108.0 IU/ml). 5) There were no significant differences in age, sex and dosage of ivermectin. 3. Comparing anti-HTLV-I antibody positive and negative patients, the following results were obtained: 1) Eradicated patients; a) Eosinophils and IgE levels before and after the first administration of medicine in anti-HTLV-I antibody positive patients were significantly lower than those of negative patients. b) Gammaglobulin levels before treatment and after both administrations of the drug, IgG before therapy and OKT4/OKT8 after therapy were significantly higher than in anti-HTLV-I antibody positive patients. 2) Resistant patients; Eosinophils after treatment were significantly lower in anti-HTLV-I antibody negative patients than in positive patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)