Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is associated with a broad and complex clinical spectrum of diseases. The objectives of this study were to assess the clinical features and identification of the causative agents of CL in a well-known focus of anthroponotic CL (ACL) caused by Leishmania tropica, southeast Iran.
This study was performed randomly as a descriptive cross-sectional survey to evaluate 2000 CL patients by active and passive case-detection approaches in Kerman Province from 1994 to 2014. The ACL patients were confirmed by direct smear and 600 cases by one or a combination of intrinsic methods.
Children aged <10 yr old were the most infected patients ( P<0.001). The majority of the CL lesions were located in hands (46.3%), face (34.1%), legs (14.3%), and other parts of the body (5.3%). The mean number of lesions was 1.5 and most of the patients had single lesion (65%).Typical clinical lesions included papule (36.8%), followed by ulcerated nodule (20.7%), plaque (18.4%), and ulcerated plaque (18.5%). While among atypical clinical features, leishmaniasis recidivans (LR) (4.7%) and leishmanid (0.3%) were the dominant forms, followed by diffuse, disseminated, sporotrichoid, and erysipeloid types, 0.1% each, and then lymphedematous, lymphadenic, hyperkeratotic, paronychial, and mutilating types, 0.05% each. Based on various intrinsic methods the parasites isolated from the lesions were characterized as L. tropica.