Polymerase chain reaction as a diagnostic tool for detecting Leishmania

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been used to identify a Leishmania para site in a cutaneous ulcer from a 27-year-old patient infected during travel in Peru, The available classical diagnostic methods could not confirm the diagnosis in a sufficiently short time, Therefore, two sets of oligonucleot ides were designed a nd with both of them fragments of the expected size we re obtained, The sequence of the fragment derived from kinetoplast DNA corr esponds to the Leishmania Viannia complex. Polymerase chain reaction has ad vantages over classical diagnostic methods, which makes it an important tec hnique in those hospitals and clinical laboratories in Europe which lack st andard diagnostic tests for Leishmania.