Treatment Patterns, And Effectivness of Anti- Leishmaniasis Agents for Patients with Cutaneous Leishmaniasis at Boru Meda Hospital, South Wollo, North East Ethiopia, 2017/18

Background: Cutaneous leishmaniasis is one of the endemic and neglected diseases known to exist in Ethiopian highlands. However, a neglected tropical disease overshadowed by lack of effective anti-leishmaniasis agent in Ethiopia. Thus, high number of population is faced for various degree of socio-economical and psychosocial morbidity. Hence, this study was initiated and conducted from July-February, 2017/18 to assess the patterns and effectiveness of different types of anti-leishmaniasis agents in Boru Meda Hospital, Dessie District. Methods: A cohort study design was employed in six treatment categories via randomly allocated cutaneous patients from three clinical types at Boru Meda hospital Dermatology department. Detailed clinical assessment, biopsy/fine needle aspiration cytology, and skin slit smear leishmania parasite detection were done to confirm clinical suspension. Then, the intended treatment types were administered for three cycles. Finally the data were analyzed using Epi- info, SPSS and the results presented using graphs and tables. Results: Among patients with mucocutaneous leishmaniasis who has took Systemic Sodium Stibogluconate (SSG) with Intra-Lesional SSG (IL SSG) the cure rate was 85.7%, systemic SSG with allopurinol was as effective as 78.6%. Patients with diffused cutaneous leishmaniasis who took both systemic SSG with allopurinol had an 80% cure rate and systemic SSG and local therapy both cryotherapy and IL SSG had a clinical cure rate of 85.7%. In addition, patients who diagnosed as localized cutaneous leishmaniasis and took only cryotherapy had 92.3% cure rate where as those patients who had a combined local therapy of both cryotherapy and IL SSG therapy showed clinical cure rate of 96.1%. Conclusion: As our study showed for any clinical type of cutaneous leishmaniasis, administering combined forms (Pentavalent antimonial with local therapies i.e. cryotherapy or/and IL SSG) of anti-leishmaniasis agents had a better cure rate than single therapies. Keywords: Cutaneous leishmaniasis; Pattern of treatments; Effectiveness; Ethiopia