Objective:

to evaluate the clinical efficacy of intralesional application of 3 versus 6 injections of Glucantime® for one or two weeks in patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis.

Methods:

quasi-experimental study. 41 patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis were included from the tropical endemic area of Cochabamba, Bolivia. Participants were randomly assigned to receive intralesional treatment with Glucantime®, in three or six applications. All patients signed a written consent to voluntarily participate in the study, approved by the ethics committee of the UMSS medical school.

Results:

evaluation of the clinical effectiveness of three or six intralesional applications of Glucantime® found no statistically significant differences between the two. Likewise, no significance differences were found regarding complete healing achieved at one month post-treatment by both application schemes.

Conclusions:

ulcer healing observed in this study was achieved independent of the scheme of either three or six intralesional applications of Glucantime® and these results are comparable to systemic treatment. Three intralesional Glucantime® applications are considered to be the minimal treatment limit for cutaneous leishmaniasis with a single ulcer smaller than three by three centimeters.

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