Abstract
AbstractVisceral leishmaniasis is an important neglected parasitic disease that is generally caused byLeishmania infantum,Leishmania donovaniandLeishmania chagasi. However, several causative species of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) causes an interstitial form of leishmaniasis which known viscerotropic leishmaniasis. The aim of this paper is a systematic review of the cases of viscerotropic leishmaniasis to present the main causative agents, clinical manifestations, treatment and outcomes of the cases. An electronic search (any date to August 2017) without language restrictions was performed using Medline, PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar. The searches identified 19 articles with total 30 case reports. Of them, old worldLeishmaniaspecies was reported from 23 (76.7%) cases, including 20 cases ofL. tropicaand three cases ofL. major; whereas new worldLeishmaniaspecies were reported in seven (23.4%) cases. The infection was more prevalent in male (24/30, 80%) than female (5/30, 16.7%) patients. Co-morbidity/co-infection was observed in 13 out of 30 cases (43.4%), which the most of them was HIV/AIDS (10 out of 13 cases, 76.9%). The results suggested that viscerotropic leishmaniasis should be more attended in the endemic countries of CL and in immunocompromised patients in order to exact discrimination from other endemic infectious diseases.
Highlights
Leishmaniasis is a neglected tropical disease with a broad global distribution (Murray et al 2005)
In the new classification, clinically and epidemiologically VL is divided into two main forms: (1) zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis (ZVL) caused by L. infantum that occurs in Asia, North Africa, Europe, South and Central America
Viscerotropic leishmaniasis is an interstitial form of leishmaniasis with some non-specific symptoms
Summary
Leishmaniasis is a neglected tropical disease with a broad global distribution (Murray et al 2005). The main clinical forms of leishmaniasis are visceral leishmaniasis (VL), cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) and mucocutaneous leishmaniasis (MCL) (Murray et al 2005).The disease has infected 12 million people worldwide and is endemic in 88 countries (Alvar et al 2012). In the new classification, clinically and epidemiologically VL is divided into two main forms: (1) zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis (ZVL) caused by L. infantum that occurs in Asia, North Africa, Europe, South and Central America. An interstitial form of leishmaniasis, which known as viscerotropic leishmaniasis is caused by main causative agents of CL, in particular L. tropica and L. mexicana (Barral et al 1986; Sacks et al 1995; Monroy-Ostria et al 2000; Choi and Lerner, 2001; Weiss et al 2009). We performed a systematic review of the cases of viscerotropic leishmaniasis to present the main causative agents and clinical appearance of the diseases
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