A Case of Pharyngeal Syphilis Detected by Narrow Band Imaging

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by Treponema pallidum (T. pallidum). In Japan, the number of cases decreased rapidly after the end of World War II due to the availability of relatively inexpensive diagnostic methods and effective antimicrobial agents such as penicillin. If a pregnant woman is infected with T. pallidum, it can infect the fetus through the placenta, resulting in miscarriage or congenital syphilis. Congenital syphilis has various late complications, such as sensorineural hearing loss, and is one of the reemerging infectious diseases that otolaryngologists should be familiar with. In this report, we describe a case of second-stage syphilis in which narrow band imaging (NBI) was useful for detecting mucosal lesions in the pharynx, with some discussion of the literature.