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Case Reports
. 2023 Jun 2:56:e0038.
doi: 10.1590/0037-8682-0038-2023. eCollection 2023.

Gestational and congenital syphilis: gaps to be elucidated

Déborah Esteves Carvalho  1 , João Victor Andrade Pimentel  2 , Luise Oliveira Ribeiro da Silva  1 , Letícia Maria Cardoso Lima Rodrigues  1 , Leonardo Santana Andrade  2 , Carlos Ramon Costa Santana  2 , Marcelo Antônio Silva Menezes  2 , Eloyse Emanuelle Nunes Silva  2 , Gabryelle Eduarda Gama Dos Santos  2 , Sayron Natanael Lopes Pereira Santos  1 , Breno Gustavo do Nascimento Gomes  2 , Letícia Almeida Meira  1 , Helga Machado de Farias Santos  1 , Izailza Matos Dantas Lopes  1
Affiliations
Case Reports

Gestational and congenital syphilis: gaps to be elucidated

Déborah Esteves Carvalho et al. Rev Soc Bras Med Trop. .

Abstract

Congenital and gestational syphilis are increasingly prevalent multisystemic infections in Brazil. This study aimed to present a case series of three children diagnosed with congenital syphilis even though their mother had unreactive treponemal tests. The VDRL (Venereal Disease Research Laboratory) titers of a 22-year-old mother with three pregnancies decreased after treatment. The mother did not have a reactive treponemal test, but all the three children were diagnosed with early congenital syphilis. This case series highlights the difficulty in diagnosing gestational and congenital syphilis in Brazil.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1:
FIGURE 1:. In A: leg radiograph showing no alterations in the first child after epiphyseal osteosclerosis in long bones from previous years. In B: diffuse metaphyseal alterations, suggestive of syphilis, are observed in the second child at the age of 2 years and 8 months. In C and D: metaphyseal alterations in the long bones of the third child (2 months old) are observed.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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