Discussion
infection
INFECTION, DISEASE, HEAT, INFECTION TOE
CTL is a relevant public health subject; morbidity is high, the disease remains active for up to a long time, which may contribute to the transmission of the infection to humans. There are, however, no policies for the treatment of CTL. Sick dogs die or are sacrificed. While there is no clear evidence about the role of dogs in All dogs in the study lived in houses, had good nutritional status, and received the recommended vaccines for dogs in Brazil. There were no differences among the groups regarding age, gender, duration of illness, main lesion site, and lesion size. Of note, 24 (75%) of the 32 dogs participating in the trial were males. In humans, CL is also more frequent among males than females, but in such cases, this is explained due to men working more in the forests than women and consequently being more exposed to the infection. However, in Brazil boys have more VL than girls, and In humans infected with Dogs with CTL have been treated with different drugs, such as meglumine antimoniate administered intramuscular or intralesional, allopurinol, furazolidone, and domperidone, as well as radio frequency induced heat therapy [In our endemic area, because failure of therapy with intravenous Glucantime may be observed in up to 70% of patients, depending on the clinical forms of the disease and the illness duration [We recognize this study has some limitations. The sample size was small, and the duration of the illness was almost twice higher in the test group compared to the placebo, although statistical difference had not been documented. The dogs remained during the whole period of the study at home with their owners, and we cannot rule out that other popular therapies were used. However, the differences in cure rate and in the decrease of the healing time of the dogs in the groups, emphasize that intralesional Glucantime might be recommended for treating dogs with CTL caused by We are grateful to Dr. Mary Wilson and Dr. Selma Jeronimo for the suggestions and revision of the manuscript and Cristiano Sampaio Franco for the assistance in the preparation of the manuscript.