Nutritional status in patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis and a study of the effects of zinc
supplementation together with antimony treatment
Sammanfattning
Background: The role of micronutrient status for the incidence and clinical course of cutaneous
leishmaniasis
is not much studied. Still zinc supplementation in leishmaniasis has shown some effect on the
clinical
recovery, but the evidence in humans is limited.
Objective: To compare biochemical nutritional status in cutaneous leishmaniasis patients with that in
controls
and to study the effects of zinc supplementation for 60 days.
Design: Twenty-nine patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis were treated with antimony for 20 days.
Fourteen
of them got 45 mg zinc daily and 15 of them got placebo. Biomarkers of nutritional and inflammatory
status
and changes in size and characteristics of skin lesions were measured.
Results: The level of transferrin receptor was higher in patients than in controls but otherwise no
differences
in nutritional status were found between patients and controls. No significant effects of zinc
supplementation
on the clinical recovery were observed as assessed by lesion area reduction and characteristics or
on
biochemical parameters.
Conclusions: It is concluded that nutritional status was essentially unaffected in cutaneous
leishmaniasis
and that oral zinc supplementation administered together with intramuscular injection of antimony
had no
additional clinical benefit.