View clinical trials related to Cutaneous Leishmaniasis.
Filter by:Infections caused by the protozoan parasite Leishmania include cutaneous (CL), mucosal (ML) and visceral leishmaniasis (VL). Over 12 million people currently suffer from leishmaniasis, and approximately 2 million new cases occur annually, making it a major global health problem. CL CL caused by Leishmania tropica is endemic around the city of Bikaner in Thar Desert region of the State of Rajasthan . WHO recommends antimonials such as sodium stibogluconate (SSG) to treat CL. However, these drugs are toxic and have poor patient compliance as they require multiple intramuscular or intralesional injections for 3 weeks. In addition, the emergence of drug-resistant strains is rapidly increasing worldwide. We are interested in novel treatments for CL that are safe, easy to administer and effective in inducing long-term cure. Recently, radio-frequency-induced heat (RFH) therapy has been used to treat CL. This treatment involves the controlled and localized delivery of radiofrequencies into lesions for 30-60 seconds under local anesthesia. Several short-term follow-up (4-5 months) studies as well as one long-term follow-up (12 months) study involving US soldiers who were infected with L. major in Iraq found that RFH therapy was comparable, or even better, than systemic antimonials. However, more studies are needed to establish long-term efficacy of RFH therapy in treatment of CL caused by other Leishmania species that are difficult to treat with conventional drugs, and to determine the risk of disease recurrence if any in patients living in Leishmania endemic regions. The goal of this trial is to compare long term efficacy of RFH therapy in treatment of CL caused by L. tropica in patients residing in Leishmania-endemic regions of India.
The U.S. Army has recently completed a Phase 3 clinical trial in Tunisia. This is an open-label single site trial designed to expand our safety database and capture additional efficacy (final clinical cure rate of an index lesion) of WR 279,396 Topical Cream in Tunisian subjects with non-complicated, non-severe Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (CL). Subjects will be patients who visit Ministry of Health sponsored clinics in Tunisia who present with at least one CL lesion that is ulcerated and amenable to topical treatment. Potential trial subjects will be consented and screened for eligibility including medical history, physical exam, lesion parasitology, and renal and liver function tests. If eligible for the study, subjects will receive WR 279,396 (15% paromomycin + 0.5% gentamicin topical cream) (target n = 110). The cream will be applied topically to all CL lesions once daily for 20 days by an investigator or study nurse. If a subject develops a new lesion during the study, the new lesion may also be treated with the topical cream.
The purpose of this study is to determine whether adding pentoxifylline to treatment of American cutaneous leishmaniasis with meglumine antimoniate increases the rate and speed of clinical response without diminishing safety, and to identify immune correlates of the healing response.
The purpose of this study is to determine the pharmacokinetics of miltefosine in children and adults with cutaneous leishmaniasis in plasma and intracellularly, and its relation with the parasitologic response. The results will provide pharmacologic bases to optimize the use of miltefosine for the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis, and will provide the knowledge base to assess the impact of pharmacokinetic behavior in children and adults on the emergence of drug resistance.
The purpose of this study is to determine whether pentoxifylline associated to pentavalent antimony has a higher cure rate than pentavalent antimony alone in the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis.
Cutaneous leishmaniasis is endemic in the New World from approximately the US-Mexican border through Central America and the Northern part of South America down to the level of Rio de Janeiro. Until recently, the standard treatment for the leishmaniases was pentavalent antimony (Glucantime or Pentostam). The cure rate for L panamensis in Colombia is 91%-93% [Soto, 1993; Velez, 1997], a large study with several formulations of antimony found a combined Bolivia-Colombia cure rate of 86% [Soto, 2004b], and in work just completed, the cure rate in Palos Blancos, Bolivia is 15 of 16 = 94% [ Soto, manuscript in preparation]. Nevertheless, pentavalent antimonials have the disadvantages of multiple injections and mild-moderate clinical toxicity [gastrointestinal complaints, liver enzyme elevations, pancreatic enzyme elevations], all of which are particularly unpleasant for a moderate clinical problem such as cutaneous leishmaniasis. The oral agent Miltefosine has now been shown to be as effective as antimony in Colombia and Bolivia. In Colombia, the cure rate for miltefosine was 91% [Soto 2004a] and in the just-completed trial in Palos Blancos, the cure rate for miltefosine was 32 of 37 = 88 % . Side effects seen in patients with cutaneous disease that can be specifically attributed to the drug are nausea and vomiting of mild grade in approximately 25% of patients, and low-grade elevation of creatinine also in approximately 25% of patients [Soto 2001; Soto 2004]. The 6-month cure rate did not reach 100%, and miltefosine was relatively slow to cure compared to Sb. 31 of 44 evaluable miltefosine patients (70%) were cured by 1 month after therapy, compared to 16 of 16 evaluable Glucantime patients (100%). Imiquimod (Aldara; 3M Pharmaceuticals) is a novel immune response-activating compound, approved by the FDA for cervical warts, that activates macrophage killing of Leishmania species. Combined imiquimod plus Glucantime was used as rescue treatment in 12 patients with Peruvian cutaneous leishmaniasis who had previously not responded to Glucantime alone. 90% of patients were cured at the 6-month follow-up period [Arevalo, 2001]. In a follow up study [Miranda-Verastegui et al, 2005], naïve patients were randomized between the combination of Sb plus imiquimod (18 patients) vs Sb plus placebo (20 patients). The cure rate at 1 month after therapy was 50% in the imiquimod +Sb group compared to 15% in the placebo+Sb group (p = 0.02). By 12 months after therapy, the Sb+placebo group had caught up, and the cure rate was 72%-75% in each group. Local side effects were evaluated. Edema, itching, burning, pain were equal in the two groups. There was more erythema in the imiquimod grup (55% of patients) compared to the placebo group (25% of patients). The Imiquimod studies in neighboring Peru suggest that combination with this immunomodulator is capable of decreasing the time to cure, and potentially increasing the cure rate, in Andean cutaneous leishmaniasis. The present study will evaluate the combination of oral miltefosine plus topical imiquimod for cutaneous leishmaniasis in Bolivia. If in the first group of patients, cure rate at 1 month after therapy is appreciably above the 70% historic value for miltefosine alone and the cure rate at 6 months is greater than the 88% historic value for miltefosine alone, subsequent patients will be randomized between miltefosine+imiquimod and miltefosine+placebo cream.
Cutaneous leishmaniasis is endemic in the New World and, until recently, the standard treatment was pentavalent antimony. The cure rate for L panamensis in Colombia is 91%-93% and the cure rate in Bolivia is also 90%. Nevertheless, pentavalent antimonials have the disadvantages of multiple injections and mild-moderate clinical toxicity all of which are particularly unpleasant for a moderate clinical problem such as cutaneous leishmaniasis. The oral agent Miltefosine has now been shown to be as effective as antimony in Colombia and Bolivia (91 and 92% respectively). Side effects seen in patients with cutaneous disease that can be specifically attributed to the drug are nausea and vomiting of mild grade in approximately 25% of patients, and low-grade elevation of creatinine also in approximately 25% of patients. A further disadvantage of miltefosine is that regimens shorter than 4 weeks have not been evaluated for cutaneous disease. Combination therapy is now being used for many infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV. Combination therapy offers the potential of preventing drug resistance, because organisms resistant to one of the drugs may be susceptible to the other drug; and also the potential to diminish drug therapy duration and thus side effects. These two potential benefits to some extent contradict each other: preventing resistance is best done if full courses of both drugs is used; diminishing therapy duration means using less than the full course of each drug. The optimum combination regimen is one in which sufficient amounts of both drugs are used to have high efficacy, yet the amounts are as low as possible to spare patients unnecessarily long courses of drug. In the present protocol, the combination of a half-course of miltefosine and a half-course of antimony will be evaluated for efficacy and tolerance. The combination of miltefosine and antimony is chosen because these are now the two standard agents in Bolivia, and in vitro the combination was additive to mildly synergistic against a standard leishmania strain.
"Phase III Clinical Trial for American Tegumentary Leishmaniasis: Comparison of Standard and Alternative Antimonial Dosage in Patients With American Cutaneous Leishmaniasis " has begun in October 2008 at the Laboratory of Leishmaniasis Surveillance at Evandro Chagas Clinical Research Institute (IPEC), FIOCRUZ, aiming to compare efficacy and safety of the standard recommended schedule with an alternative dosage scheme of meglumine antimoniate in the treatment of American tegumentary leishmaniasis (ATL). It is a study with blind evaluation by the doctors and the responsible for statistical analysis. Patients diagnosed with ATL, eligible for the trial are randomly allocated into one of the schemes with meglumine antimoniate and monitored before, during and after it. There is no single regimen applicable to all forms of leishmaniasis around the world. Therapeutic regimens applied to treat people living in other geographic areas result in mixed outcomes. Ideally, the most appropriate regimens should be established for each endemic area, based on its efficacy, toxicity, difficulties of administration and cost. Given the problems and limitations of the use of pentavalent antimonials (Sb5+) at 20 mg Sb5+ / kg / day, less toxic alternative regimens, i.e. 5mg Sb5+/kg/day, deserve to be better evaluated. The treatment of ATL must heal skin lesions and prevent late mucosal lesion development. The indication of high doses of Sb5+ is based on the evidence that there could be induction of resistance with use of subdoses. However, clinical studies with extended follow-up in Rio de Janeiro have suggested that regular low doses (5mg Sb5+ / kg / day) may constitute an effective scheme, achieving cure rates similar to higher doses, with lower toxicity, ease of implementation and lower cost. Published studies on efficacy and safety of alternative dosage schemes with meglumine antimoniate failed to provide conclusive results so far, for various methodological biases. The need to compare the effectiveness and safety between the standard treatment scheme with meglumine antimoniate currently recommended in Brazil for the treatment of ATL and an alternative scheme with low doses of antimony is the motive for this study in Rio de Janeiro.
Intralesional injection of antimony has been used for L major from Iran with a modest cure rate [56%: Asilian 2004]. However, this therapeutic approach has been used for L braziliensis from Brazil, with an attractive cure rate after 3 months of 80% [Oliveira-Neto 1997]. Because intralesional Sb injections is the local therapy with the best reported cure rate for South American L braziliensis disease, the species that causes disease in Bolivia, this pilot study of local therapy for bolivian L braziliensis disease will evaluate intralesional Sb therapy.
Current standard therapies with chemotherapy (CT) for Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (CL) are expensive, toxic/allergenic, frequently ineffective, burdensome, and often unavailable. Thermotherapy is a clinically validated first line alternative for the treatment of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in South America. However, current heat-delivery modalities are either too costly or lack governmental approval required to be made widely available to endemic areas. The investigators have adapted a reliable, safe, and low-cost heat pack for Cutaneous Leishmaniasis that the investigators have named the HECT-CL device. In this pilot study the investigators will enroll 25 patients who have either failed or are not candidates for pentivalent antimonies. The hypothesis states that the HECT-CL device demonstrates efficacy non-statistically inferior to estimates for current South American Pentavalent Antimonial cure rates (76%) while demonstrating basic safety and tolerability.