The Efficacy, Relapse and Failure in the Treatment of Anthroponotic Cutaneous Leishmaniosis with Intralesional Glucantime Along with Cryotherapy

Background & Aims: It is more than half of a century that the drug of choice for treatment of cutaneous leishmaniosis (CL) has been pentavalent antimony compounds such as meglumine antimoniate (Glucantime). The aim of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy, relapse and treatment failure of intralesional Glucantime plus cryotherapy in the treatment of anthroponotic CL (ACL). Methods: The sample of this analytic cross-sectional study included 547 lesions belonged to 322 patients who had referred to Dadbin Health Clinic afilliated to Kerman University of Medical Sciences, from March 2013 to March 2014. They received the local treatment with intralesional Glucantime once a week coupled with cryotherapy using liquid nitrogen once every two weeks and for at most three months. The effectiveness was defined as the proportion of cured lesions to the treatment- received lesions. Results: Of 547 lesions, 399 lesions (73%) were cured, 86 lesions (15.7%) were partially cured, and 62 lesions (11.3%) had treatment failure.From 399 lesions which were cured completely, 21 (5.3%) lesions had developed with relapse. The rates of treatment failure and relapse were not associated with the sex of patients. While, these two variables showed significant relationships with lesions’ location and the age group of patients (p<0.05). Conclusion: This study showed that the efficacy of the intralesional injection of Glucantime combined with cryotherapy was 73%. Since the relapse and treatment failure were mostly observed in the age group of 0-9 year old and in lesions on face and hands, more attention to these lesions is necessary