Oral albendazole for the treatment of cutaneous larva migrans

Abstract

Cutaneous larva migrans is becoming more common in the U.K. with the popularity of tropical countries as holiday destinations. We describe the increasing use of a new benzimidazole derivative, albendazole, which is very effective in the treatment of cutaneous larva migrans. In contrast to thiabendazole, it is virtually free from side-effects and should, we feel, become the treatment of choice for this condition.

Management of imported cutaneous larva migrans: A case series and mini-review

“…Like colleagues [13,14,17], we noted that >90% of CLM patients in this series responded favorably to a single 3-day course of albendazole 400 mg daily (Table 2). In our series, cure was achieved in 2 patients who failed an initial 3-day course with just one further 3-day course of albendazole.…”

“…Details of the 10 included studies are summarized in Table 2. In the 5 studies reporting on the efficacy of 3 daily doses of 400-mg albendazole for CLM [9,10,13,14,17], as was used in our TDU for the 25 patients reported herein, efficacy ranged from 77% to 100% (Table 2). …”

Three clinical cases of cutaneous larva migrans

“…Many subsequent reports testify to its efficacy (Coulaud et al, 1982;Williams and Monk, 1989;Jones et al, 1990;Sanguigni et al, 1990;Rizzitelli et al, 1997;Veraldi and Rizzitelli, 1999;Kim et al, 2002;You et al, 2002;Suh et al, 2003). Thus, we also adopted an albendazole approach to treat the described 3 cases at a dose of 400 mg once daily for 3-5 days.…”

Two imported cases of cutaneous larva migrans

“…Albendazole, a new benzimidazole derivative, has also been shown to be very effective in the treatment of CLM when given as a single 400-mg dose or 200 mg twice a day for 3 days. Side effects are infrequent and mild, and appear only after high-dosage and long-term administration (Williams and Monk, 1989;Jones et al, 1990;Rizzitelli et al, 1997). In this report, albendazole was given to a 4-yearold child at a single dosage of 10 mg/kg and to 27-year-old patient at a dosage of 400 mg/day for 3 days, respectively.…”