Clinical Study American Visceral Leishmaniasis: Factors Associated with

Copyright © 2012 Geraldine Madalosso et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objectives. To identify factors associated with death in visceral leishmaniasis (VL) cases. Patients and Methodology. We evaluated prognostic factors for death from VL in São Paulo state, Brazil, from 1999 to 2005. A prognostic study nested in a clinical cohort was carried out by data analysis of 376 medical files. A comparison between VL fatal cases and survivors was performed for clinical, laboratory, and biological features. Association between variables and death was assessed by univariate analysis, and the multiple logistic regression model was used to determine adjusted odds ratio for death, controlling confounding factors. Results. Data analysis identified 53 fatal cases out of 376 patients, between 1999 and 2005 in São Paulo state. Lethality was 14.1 % (53/376), being higher in patients older than fifty years. The main causes of death were sepsis, bleeding, liver failure, and cardiotoxicity du