Comparison of polymerase chain reaction with other laboratory methods for the diagnosis of American cutaneous leishmaniasis

Abstract

An evaluation of 5 laboratory methods for diagnosing American cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL) was carried out on patients from an endemic area of Brazil. From 164 patients presenting cutaneous lesions, and suspected to have ACL, 133 (81.1%) were confirmed for the disease by Montenegro skin test (MST) and/or parasitologic examination (PE). In both groups of patients, the positivity of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was similar to that of immunofluorescence assay and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and higher than that of MST and PE (P < .05). In the group of patients suspected to have ACL, PCR presented the same positivity as PE and MST together. No correlation between positivity of the laboratory methods and clinical or epidemiologic aspects was observed. Our data confirmed the value of PCR as an alternative laboratory method for diagnosing ACL, especially for those patients with negative PE and MST.

Evaluation of polymerase chain reaction in the routine diagnosis for tegumentary leishmaniasis in a referral centre

“…PCR was the most sensitive and specific exam among the applied methods. These findings were in agreement with other Brazilian studies using the same or different primers (Pirmez et al 1999, Romero et al 2001, Oliveira et al 2005, Marques et al 2006.…”

“…Various studies have suggested the usefulness of molecular techniques for the aetiological diagnosis of ATL (Pirmez et al 1999, de Oliveira et al 2003, Schonian et al 2003, Garcia et al 2004, Marques et al 2006, Gomes et al 2008, Luz et al 2009). In different studies conducted on humans, the sensitivity of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was about 100%, whereas 60% was observed for other types of exams.…”

Comparison between Quantitative Nucleic Acid Sequence-Based Amplification, Real-Time Reverse Transcriptase PCR, and Real-Time PCR for Quantification ofLeishmaniaParasites

“…Only a few studies have compared the application of molecular diagnostic tools for leishmaniasis (5,20). These studies are needed in order to assess the best assay performance for implementation in areas where the disease either is or is not endemic.…”

An improved microculture method for diagnosis of cutaneous leishmaniasis

“…However, negative results of IMC should be confirmed by tests with higher sensitivity such as PCR. Marques et al (2006), Bensoussan et al (2006) suggested using PCR for chronic cases and when other methods had failed to detect the disease. Hence, the IMC results may not be reliable in favor of chronic skin lesions.…”

“…(Marques et al 2006;Bensoussan et al 2006) Thus, culture-based testing such as IMC is more practical, particularly in under resourced settings. In addition to being more economical and accessible, the IMC has the advantage of isolating organisms for drug susceptibility testing and genotyping, which are important in countries where CL is endemic.…”