Research in Medicine

Background: Giardia lamblia is a major cause of diarrheal disease among children and adults with a worldwide distribution. With respect to the wide usage of metronidazole for multiple types of infection and risk of drug resistance as well as its side effects, initiation of new therapies seems inevitable. We attempted to compare the therapeutic effects of albendazole with metronidazole in patients with giardiasis.

 Materials and methods: Having completed an informed consent, 120 documented cases of giardiasis, residing in Hamadan , were assigned randomly in two equal groups. The first and second groups received albendazole (400 mg daily as single dose, for 5 days) and metronidazole (250 mg, 3 times a day, for 5 days) respectively. ????Detecting the trophozoites in the samples and blindly checking all iodine-stained wet stool preparations before and after a parasitologist did the therapeutic intervention. Data analysis was performed using SPSS 9.01(SPSS Inc. Chicago, IL, USA) via Chi square and independent student t tests. Type 1 and 2 errors were considered as 0.05 and 0.2 respectively.

 Results: After the whole course of the therapy, in 6 (10 %) patients of the first group and 14 patients from the second group, failure of treatment was seen and a significant difference between the two groups was found (Chi square test, p<0.05). Response was observed in the first and the second groups in 54(90%) and 46 (76.7%) of cases respectively and the difference was statistically significant (Chi square test after Yate's correction, p<0.05). Drug side effects in metronidazole group were higher

Conclusion: Albendazole is a quite safe and effective medicine in the treatment of giardiasis and can be easily used in the treatment of giardiasis.