A preliminary study to characterize patients diagnosed with syphilis attending a tertiary care centre in South India

Syphilis is a common sexually transmitted infection caused by Treponema pallidum. The infection passes through distinct primary, secondary, latent and tertiary stages and these stages have implications in diagnosis and treatment. Serological tests are the mainstay in diagnosis and follow up of syphilis. The study was conducted to determine the current scenario of syphilis in a 2400 bedded tertiary care centre in south India. Ninety seven syphilis patients confirmed by the Treponema pallidum hemagglutination test (TPHA) were identified from the laboratory records from the years 2011 to 2013. Electronic medical records of the patients were sought to gather information on clinical details and coexisting sexually transmitted infections.Males were predominant in number. From the patient records available, latent stage was found to be a more common stage at presentation to the hospital followed by neurosyphilis. There was one case of fetal death in a syphilis patient brought with eclampsia to the labor room and one case of congenital syphilis which was lost to follow up. Other virus borne sexually transmitted infections like HIV, Hepatitis B and C were seen in 16 patients from details available on 78 patients. HIV was the commonest among the three. Syphilis is still prevalent and individuals at risk need to be identified and screened. Antenatal screening and appropriate therapy has reduced fetal loss to a large extent in pregnancy. Other agents of bacterial and viral etiology should also be screened for when the patient is diagnosed with syphilis or any sexually transmitted infection.