A Case of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis Treated with Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

Abstract

Cutaneous leishmaniasis in Poland is an imported disease mainly occurring in tourists who travelled to tropical countries. Cutaneous symptoms occur as late as between ten and twenty days following the return from the tropics. Lesions connected with cutaneous leishmaniasis were most commonly diagnosed by Polish doctors as furuncle, ecthyma or ulceration and ineffectively treated for several weeks with antibiotics. The paper presents the case of leishmaniasis in a 30-year-old male with an ulceration of the left shank, ineffectively treated with antibiotics over a period of four months. The ulceration was healed completely only after leishmaniasis was diagnosed and following the application of a treatment based on antimony derivatives, followed by hyperbaric oxygenation performed in a hyperbaric chamber.