Comparison of PCR‐based methods for the diagnosis of cutaneous leishmaniasis in two different epidemiological scenarios: Spain and Morocco

Abstract

PCR should be routinely used in patients with cutaneous lesions compatible with CL and furthermore, the combination of two PCR techniques is advisable. The selection of these PCRs will be influenced by the epidemiological scenario: In areas where L. infantum is endemic, the use of the PCR-ELISA joint with JW13/JW14-PCR seems an appropriate choice, whereas in areas such as Morocco, Lmj4/Uni21 and ITS-1 provide satisfactory results.

Leishmaniasis due to Leishmania infantum : Integration of human, animal and environmental data through a One Health approach

“…PCR allowed the diagnosis of most cases when an appropriate sample was available and it was particularly useful for the diagnosis of CL and ML. Merino-Espinosa et al in 2018 suggest that PCR should be routinely used in patients with cutaneous lesions compatible with CL and the combination of two PCR techniques is recommended (Merino-Espinosa, Rodríguez-Granger, et al, 2018). FFPE samples analysis allows PCR diagnosis even when CL has not been suspected.…”

“…Merino‐Espinosa et al. in 2018 suggest that PCR should be routinely used in patients with cutaneous lesions compatible with CL and the combination of two PCR techniques is recommended (Merino‐Espinosa, Rodríguez‐Granger, et al, 2018). FFPE samples analysis allows PCR diagnosis even when CL has not been suspected.…”

“…For microscopy and culture, only bone marrow and biopsies were used. Species typing was performed using two molecular methods: PCR‐ELISA and qPCR GranaLeish (Martín‐Sánchez et al., 2002; Merino‐Espinosa, Rodríguez‐Granger, et al, 2018).…”

Introductory Chapter: Leishmaniasis: An Emerging Clinical Syndrome

“…In this regard, molecular techniques such as real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)-based methods are gaining ground for detection and quantification of Leishmania as well as for species identification [57]. However, to rule out false negatives, combination of two PCR techniques is advisable in patients with cutaneous lesions [58]. For VL, serological diagnosis with recombinant antigen rK39-based immunochromatography and direct agglutination test based on the whole parasite antigens have been reported to have high sensitivity and specificity [59].…”

Performance of a universal PCR assay to identify different Leishmania species causative of Old World cutaneous leishmaniasis

“…However, conventional parasitology methods have an intermediate diagnostic sensitivity on dermal aspirate samples of CL, as they are influenced by the sampling procedure, type of skin lesion, parasite load and technical personnel expertise [11]. Molecular methods based upon the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of Leishmania DNA have been widespread for diagnosis of the causative species of CL [12][13][14][15]. Many such PCR assays have been reported in the literature, but most of the PCR amplification protocols have low accuracy to identify all species complexes, have no validity testing on clinical samples and some of them need post-PCR procedures such as sequencing, restriction digestion or melting curve analysis, which are not readily available in remote locations [16,17].…”