BACKGROUND: The standard treatment for bacterial vaginosis is metronidazole. Side effects are not well tolerated by some patients and some develop resistance. Hence, the search for treatment with less side effects and less resistance.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the efficacy of vaginal dequalinium chloride compared to oral metronidazole in the treatment of bacterial vaginosis among non; pregnant women.

METHOD: Fourty non-pregnant women and non lactating women, 18-50 years old diagnosed with bacterial vaginosis by presence of vaginal discharge and malodor, Nugent's score of 4 and above, and clue cells seen in Gram stain, were randomly allocated to treatment groups. Group A received dequalinium chloride 10mg/vaginal tablet for 6 days at HS while Group B received metronidazole tablet, 500mg/tablet, 1 tablet per orem BID for 7 days. Microbiologic, clinical and complete cure rate as well as adverse effects of treatment were then assessed. Data entry and encoding was done using Epi info version 6. Analysis was done using stata version 9. Univariate analysis such as mean, median, mode and range were used to describe the characteristics of the subjects. Frequency distribution was used to describe the proportion of patients with microbiologic, clinical and complete cure. This was also used in describing proportion of the participants' acceptability in this study. Chi square was used for comparison of dequalinium chloride and metronidazole between treatment-arms.

RESULTS: Ninety five percent (19/20) of those in the dequalinium arm had gram-negative coccobacilli count of less than 10/hpf as compared to 80% (16/20) among those in the control (P < 0.30). Lactobacilli was only restored among 25% of those in the metronidazole and in 75% of the control group (P = 0.002). Reduced amount of discharge was observed in all paricipants in both groups. Malodor of the discharge disappeared in 95% (19/20) of the H₂O₂ and 85% (17/20) of the control group (P=0.30).

CONCLUSION: Dequalinium is comparable with the standard treatment. It is at par with the standard treatment in alleviating symptoms of bacterial vaginosis and reducing estimated coccobacilli. It is more effacious in restoring the normal flora.

Human ; Female ; Middle Aged ; Adult ; Young Adult ; Vaginosis, Bacterial ; Dequalinium ; Metronidazole ; bacteria ; Gardnerella vaginalis ; Mycoplasma hominis ; Fusobacterium