Human mucocutaneous leishmaniasis in Três Braços, Bahia - Brazil: an area of Leishmania braziliensis braziliensis transmission. I. Laboratory diagnosis

• Main Authors: César C. Cuba, Elmer A. Llanos-Cuentas, Air C. Barreto, Albino V. Magalhães, Edinaldo L. Lago, Steven G. Reed, Philip D. Marsden
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical (SBMT) 1984-12-01
• Series: Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical
• Subjects: Leishmania braziliensis braziliensis; Isolamento de parasito; Imunodiagnóstico
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0037-86821984000400002&lng=en&tlng=en
• ISSN: 1678-9849

Leishmanial parasites were detected in 71.2% of patients with cutaneous disease and 48% of patients with mucosal disease, using principally scanning of imprints mears and histological sections and hamster inoculation. Parasites were more frequent in early cutaneous lesions (p < 0.005) o fless than two month duration. Also they were more common in multiple than single mucosal lesions (p < 0.02) in spite of considerable prior glucan time therapy in the former group. 93% of cutaneous lesions had a positive leishmanin skin test and most of the negatives occurred in patients with lesions of less than one month duration. 97% of patients with single mucosal lesion and 79% with multiple mucosal lesions had a positive skin test. 86% of cutaneous disease and 90% of mucosal disease was associated with a positive indirect immunofluorescent antibody test at a ≥ 1/20 dilution. In both groups multiple lesions were associated with higher titres and titres were significantly higher in patients with mucosal disease compared with cutaneous disease (p < 0.01).