RESUMO
Many physicians in the United States and other nonendemic countries lack familiarity with New World cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) and fail to include it in their differential diagnosis when seeing patients with suggestive lesions and recent high-risk travel. Moreover, even when the diagnosis of New World CL is considered and confirmed, physicians in the United States still face obstacles in obtaining appropriate treatment. In this report, we present 3 cases of New World CL that were either initially misdiagnosed or faced significant delays in therapy. We also discuss the optimal approach by which to confirm New World CL and to collaborate with professional colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in treating individual patients. In particular, when pentavalent antimonial treatment is needed for treatment, physicians must obtain appropriate diagnostic studies, communicate with experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, complete necessary paperwork, and obtain approval from their local institutional review board to administer it.
Assuntos
Gluconato de Antimônio e Sódio/administração & dosagem , Leishmaniose Mucocutânea/diagnóstico , Leishmaniose Mucocutânea/tratamento farmacológico , Adulto , Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. , Costa Rica , Drogas em Investigação/uso terapêutico , Equador , Comitês de Ética em Pesquisa , Humanos , Infusões Parenterais , Masculino , Peru , Viagem , Estados UnidosRESUMO
The increasing death toll from drug-resistant falciparum malaria is cause for international concern. In 2002, the US Agency for International Development commissioned the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to recommend global actions to ensure the broadest possible access to new, effective antimalarial treatments. In a report issued in 2004, the IOM Committee on Economics of Antimalarial Drugs recommended a global subsidy of 300 million dollars to 500 million dollars per year to replace increasingly ineffective drugs with coformulated artemisinin combination treatments to be distributed through public and private channels in affected areas. This approach allows the existing market to support the switch to new drugs and keeps treatment costs for consumers at levels similar to the current price of chloroquine. The leverage of an international subsidy of combination therapy can also discourage the distribution of monotherapies (such as solo artemisinins), the use of which might foster increasing resistance to antimalarial drugs in the future.