Assessing nystatin cream treatment efficacy against Leishmania (L.) amazonensis infection in BALB/c model

Exp Parasitol. 2023 May 15:108547. doi: 10.1016/j.exppara.2023.108547. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTThe current scenario for cutaneous leishmaniasis treatment includes the use of first and second-choice drugs, both therapeutic strategies presenting several adverse effects and being related to an increment of treatment-refractory parasite strains. These facts encourage the search for new treatment approaches, including repositioning drugs, such as nystatin. Although some in vitro assays show that this polyene macrolide compound has leishmanicidal activity, no in vivo evidence for a similar activity has been shown so far for the commercial nystatin cream formulation (25,000 IU/g). This work assessed the effects of nystatin cream administered on mice in an amount to completely cover the paw surface of BALB/c mice infected with L. (L.) amazonensis once a day, until a total of up to 20 doses. The data presented herein points to unequivocal evidence that this formulation is related to a statistically significant reduction of swelling/edema in mice paws when compared to animal groups not submitted to this treatment regimen after the fourth week of infection: lesion sizes at the sixth (p = 0.0159), seventh (p = 0.0079) and eighth (p = 0.0079) week. Furthermore, infection reduction relates to a decrease in parasite load in the footpad (∼48%) and in draining lymph nodes (∼68%) at 8th weeks post-infection. This is the first report of the effectiveness of nystatin cream used as a to...
Source: Experimental Parasitology - Category: Parasitology Authors: Source Type: research