Unresponsiveness to Glucantime treatment in Iranian cutaneous leishmaniasis due to drug-resistant Leishmania tropica parasites.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Recent circumstantial evidence suggests that an increasing number of Iranian patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis are unresponsive to meglumine antimoniate (Glucantime), the first line of treatment in Iran. This study was designed to determine whether the clinical responses (healing, or non-healing) were correlated with the susceptibility of Leishmania parasites to Glucantime.

Methods and findings

In vitro susceptibility testing was first performed on 185 isolated parasites in the intracellular mouse peritoneal macrophage model. A strong correlation between the clinical outcome and the in vitro effective concentration 50% (EC50) values was observed. Parasites derived from patients with non-healing lesions had EC50 values at least 4-fold higher than parasites deri

SUBMITTER: Hadighi R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1435779 | biostudies-literature | 2006 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature