Effect of Antimonial Therapy on Levels of (TNF-α and IL-1β) Cytokines in Cutaneous Leishmaniasis Patients in Iraq

This study aimed to study the effective antimonial therapy on circulating levels proinflammatory cytokines, and their effect on susceptibility to cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) infection in the Iraqi population. Fifty CssL patients were treated with pentavalent antimonial salts (pentostam) for 7 weeks. Leishmania species were identified by Nested-Polymerase chain reaction method, and in all the cases the strains corresponded to Leishmania major. Circulating plasma levels of the proinflammatory cytokines interleukin-1 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha were determined for CL patients and healthy subjects before and during 7 weeks after the treatment were started. Concentrations were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay technique using a quantitative sandwich enzyme immunoassay technique. Proinflammatory cytokines significantly increased after 7 days postinfection compared to levels in the pretreatment patients. It was clearly recorded in the present study that the level of interleukin-1 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha in the serum of CL patients was responsively increasing with the antimonial therapy dose.