0000000000269765
AUTHOR
Carlo Parravicini
Leishmaniasis among organ transplant recipients.
Leishmaniasis is a rarely reported disease among transplant recipients; however, the number of published cases has quadrupled since the beginning of the 1990s. Most cases have been observed in patients living in countries of the Mediterranean basin. Leishmaniasis is most commonly associated with kidney transplantation (77%), and cases are also recorded among patients undergoing liver, heart, lung, pancreas, and bone marrow transplantation. Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is the most frequently observed clinical presentation, followed by mucosal leishmaniasis and more rarely cutaneous leishmaniasis. Transplant recipients with VL develop the classic clinical form of the disease, which is a febril…
Clinical use of polymerase chain reaction performed on peripheral blood and bone marrow samples for the diagnosis and monitoring of visceral leishmaniasis in HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected patients: a single-center, 8-year experience in Italy and review of the literature
Background To overcome some of the limitations of conventional microbiologic techniques, polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based assays are proposed as useful tools for the diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis. Patients and methods A comparative study using conventional microbiologic techniques (i.e., serologic testing, microscopic examination, and culture) and a Leishmania species-specific PCR assay, using peripheral blood and bone marrow aspirate samples as templates, was conducted during an 8-year period. The study cohort consisted of 594 Italian immunocompetent (adult and pediatric) and immunocompromised (adult) patients experiencing febrile syndromes associated with hematologic alteration…