ELISA has been used as a potential serodiagnostic tool for almost all infectious diseases, including leishmaniasis.
The technique is highly sensitive, but its specificity depends upon the antigen used.
Several antigens have been tried.
The commonly used antigen is a crude soluble antigen (CSA)..
What are the symptoms and signs of visceral leishmaniasis? Some people have a silent infection, without any symptoms or signs.
People who develop clinical evidence of infection usually have fever, weight loss, enlargement (swelling) of the spleen and liver, and abnormal blood tests..
Visceral leishmaniasis (VL), also known as kala-azar, is fatal if left untreated in over 95% of cases.
It is characterized by irregular bouts of fever, weight loss, enlargement of the spleen and liver, and anaemia.
Most cases occur in Brazil, east Africa and India..
Amastigotes of Leishmania are spherical to ovoid and measure 1-5 \xb5m long by 1-2 \xb5m wide.
They possess a large nucleus, a prominent kinetoplast, and a short axoneme, the last of which is rarely visible by light microscopy.
The organisms reside in macrophages of the host and can be found throughout the body..
Leishmania have two major different cell morphologies, exemplified by the promastigote morphology in the sand fly and the amastigote morphology in the mammalian host (figure 1a)..
Blood tests that detect antibody (an immune response) to the parasite can be helpful for cases of visceral leishmaniasis; tests to look for the parasite (or its DNA) itself usually also are done.
For Healthcare Providers, Emergency Consultations, and General Public..
Use of fine needle aspiration cytology in the diagnosis of cutaneous leishmaniasis:
There are three basic types of cutaneous leishmaniasis: cutaneous leishmaniasis (acute and chronic), mucocutaneous leishmaniasis, and disseminatedanergic cutaneous leishmaniasis.
Depending in the clinical type and stage, in leishmaniasis, the epidermis may be either ulcerated with marked secondary changes and epidermal reaction, or alternatively th.
Leishmania is an organism related to the trypanosomes.
The inflammatory disease caused by the organism may involve skin and mucous membranes, as well as internal organs.
The organism's lifecycle contains a flagellate phase (promastigote) while living within the vector, and a phase when the flagellum is retracted (amastigote) which is the stage seen.
The leishmania organisms are typically intensely positive with Giemsa stain where they stain blue on paraffin embedded sections.
Skin or other organ smears can also demonstrate the organism with Giemsa stain.
In difficult cases, or for precise organism characterisation molecular techniques such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) can be applied.
Visceral involvement is usually manifested as fever, pallor, and weakness, or anorexia.
Objective findings include:
B.
Cutaneous leishmaniasis.
This is a classic description of a cutaneous leishmaniasis lesion and Northeastern Brazil is a location of high endemicity.
Although leprosy (Hansen disease) also occurs in Northeastern Brazil, this is not a typical presentation.
Kinetoplastid (like a second, small nucleus) is a helpful morphologic feature Consult reference laboratories prior to specimen collection Within the Americas, Latin America and particularly Bolivia have high prevalence Brazil, Bolivia and Peru account for 90% of mucocutaneous leishmaniasis cases .
