EFFICACY OF IVERMECTIN IN THE TREATMENT OF CONCOMITANT MANSONELLA-PERSTANS INFECTIONS IN ONCHOCERCIASIS PATIENTS

Citation
H. Schulzkey et al., EFFICACY OF IVERMECTIN IN THE TREATMENT OF CONCOMITANT MANSONELLA-PERSTANS INFECTIONS IN ONCHOCERCIASIS PATIENTS, Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 87(2), 1993, pp. 227-229
Citations number
26
Categorie Soggetti
Public, Environmental & Occupation Heath","Tropical Medicine
ISSN journal
00359203
Volume
87
Issue
2
Year of publication
1993
Pages
227 - 229
Database
ISI
SICI code
0035-9203(1993)87:2<227:EOIITT>2.0.ZU;2-H
Abstract
As part of an ivermectin dose-ranging study of onchocerciasis patients in Togo, 55 onchocerciasis patients with concomitant mansonelliasis r eceived single oral doses either of ivermectin (100 to 200 mug/kg body weight) or placebo. As expected, Onchocerca volvulus microfilariae in the skin were greatly reduced in number soon after drug treatment, bu t microfilariae of Mansonella perstans reacted differently. Microfilar ial densities of M. perstans were assessed with a filtration technique both before, and 4 times after, treatment. In untreated patients micr ofilarial densities were stable until the end of the study at 6 months . In patients receiving ivermectin, microfilarial densities dropped on average to less than 60% of the pre-treatment level and remained ther e until the final post-treatment examination. This partial reduction w as probably not caused by a microfilaricidal effect of ivermectin, but rather by an altered distribution of microfilariae in the peripheral blood and in a suspected microfilarial reservoir.