Intralesional autotherapy of cutaneous leishmaniasis with buffy coat cells: cytological findings

The skin lesions of five patient volunteers with dry-type cutaneous leishma niasis were treated by intralesional injection of auto-leukocytes prepared from buffy coat of the patient's own blood. Giemsa stained, air-dried cytol ogical smear preparations were prepared from scrapings taken from the margi ns of the lesions. The cellular interaction between the organism and the in flammatory response of the host was studied. All lesions showed clinical ev idence of regression. The cytological findings suggested progressive degrad ation of the Leishman donovan (LD) bodies within the parasitophorous vacuol es of the activated macrophages. The parasiticidal effect appeared to be in duced by synergistic action of the injected neutrophils and lymphocytes. Du e to lack of placebo controls in this study the possibility that, healing m ight not be related to therapy can not be excluded. This study illustrates the potential for intralesional autotherapy with buffy coat in dry-type cut aneous leishmaniasis. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.