Comparison Between Plethysmometer and Caliper Methods to Monitor Lesion-Size Induced by <i>Leishmania major</i> Infection in BALB/c Mouse Experimental Model

Abstract

Abstract:In several parasitological diseases, as for leishmaniasis, measurement of the size of cutaneous lesions, which develop at the site of parasite inoculation in animal models, are the most commonly used index to assess disease progression, to compare parasites pathogenicity or virulence and to determine the effects of drug treatment and immunotherapies. The aim of this study is to compare the accuracy of two measurement tools i.e., the caliper and the plethysmometer to refine the lesion size determination. Our findings showed that the use of plethysmometer produced higher correlation with the importance of the lesion mass at experimental endpoints. These findings suggest that, for better differentiation in drug monitoring or Leishmania (L.) strains' virulence and pathogenicity, plethysmometer method is more sensitive to detect parasite-induced swelling and lesions differences at the end of experimental protocols when lesion size is important but caliper is more indicated for small lesions.