The current clinical and geographical situation of cutaneous leishmaniasis based on species identification in Turkey

WOS: 000457510400010PubMed ID: 30412694Leishmaniases are a group of vector-borne diseases caused by the members of Leishrnania genus, and there are three main clinical forms of the infection as visceral, cutaneous, and mucocutaneous. Cutaneous leishmaniasis is a growing public health problem in Turkey due to increasing detection of autochthonous cases caused by L. major and L. donovani in some regions in addition to Syrian imported cases. For this reason, we aimed to evaluate the current epidemiological situation of CL in the view of causative agents and their geographical distribution throughout Turkey. The samples were collected from 356 CL patients admitted to different centers in 18 provinces between January 2013 and December 2016. Direct microscopy, culture (regular and enriched NNN) and molecular techniques (real-time ITS1 PCR and hsp70 PCR/sequencing) were performed. By molecular techniques, 299, 28, 19 and 10 isolates/clinical samples were identified as L. tropica, L. major, L. infant= and L. donovani, respectively. Most of the patients (65.73%) had one lesion usually on their face/head. Dry-nodular type lesions (n = 291) were mainly associated with L. tropica while L. major was mainly found related to wet-ulcerative ones. Leishmaniasis recidivans was also detected in 2.52% among 356 patients. L. tropica was detected as most widespread species causing CL in Turkey. L. infantum and L. major was also found in one third of the provinces. Enriched NNN culture was worked well for isolating the parasite and 346 isolates were successfully grown and stored in liquid nitrogen. The comparison of all diagnostic techniques showed that the parasitological positivity rate could increase if the combination of direct microscopy and real-time ITS1 PCR is used. Besides well-known anthroponotic L. tropica cases, the increasing detection of CL cases caused by zoonotic species, L. infantum and L. major, is one of the most important findings in the present study. In our opinion to ensure timely and accurate diagnosis, proper treatment and countrywide effective control of CL in Turkey a systematic approach is needed on the base of information about characteristics of lesions and patients and epidemiological features of the disease.Scientific Research Projects Office of Manisa Celal Bayar University, Turkey [2013-002, 2013-003, 2014-022, 2014-023]; Scientific and Technical Research Council of TurkeyTurkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Arastirma Kurumu (TUBITAK) [114S999]The authors would like to special thanks to Parasite Bank of Faculty of Medicine of Manisa Celal Bayar University, Turkey. This study was supported by Scientific Research Projects Office of Manisa Celal Bayar University, Turkey, with several projects (Project Nos: 2013-002; 2013-003; 2014-022 and 2014-023). This study was also supported partially by The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (Project No: 114S999)