Cutaneous leishmaniasis – Authors' reply

Abstract

Cutaneous leishmaniasisThe Review by Richard Reithinger and colleagues 1 on cutaneous leishmaniasis was a useful update on a neglected but important disease. 2We would like to make a few comments regarding the treatment section of that article.Table 2 of the Review 1 provides a summary of the recommended and alternative treatment regimens for cutaneous leishmaniasis.The authors mention that with the exception of studies assessing treatment options for mucosal leishmaniasis, they only included studies in which monotherapies were assessed. 1][10] The rationale behind Reithinger and colleagues' decision is required to explain the potential selection bias in their Review.In the fourth column of table 2, 1 clinical effi cacy against Leishmania spp has not been presented in a manner that can be clearly understood.We believe that more detailed description of the included studies and provision of 95% CIs might be a better option.Example of such presentation is available elsewhere. 11 The provided range for some interventions is too wide to be clinically meaningful without further explanation.Finally, we noticed that despite the eff orts of the authors to pay particular attention to articles published in non-English literature, several studies that where done in Iran might have been overlooked. 12,13 The results of these studies are published in Persian, their