Effect of Local Administration of Meglumine Antimoniate and Polyhexamethylene Biguanide Alone or in Combination with a Toll-like Receptor 4 Agonist for the Treatment of Papular Dermatitis due to <i>Leishmania infantum</i> in Dogs.

Abstract

first_pagesettingsOrder Article Reprints Open AccessArticle Effect of Local Administration of Meglumine Antimoniate and Polyhexamethylene Biguanide Alone or in Combination with a Toll-like Receptor 4 Agonist for the Treatment of Papular Dermatitis due to Leishmania infantum in Dogs by Icíar Martínez-Flórez 1,Maria Jose Guerrero 2ORCID,Annabel Dalmau 3,Maria Cabré 1,4ORCID,Maria Magdalena Alcover 5ORCID,Diana Berenguer 5,Liam Good 6,Roser Fisa 5ORCID,Cristina Riera 5ORCID,Laura Ordeix 1,4 andLaia Solano-Gallego 1,*ORCID 1 Departament de Medicina i Cirurgia Animals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain 2 Hospital Veterinario Alhaurín el Grande, 29120 Alhaurín el Grande, Spain 3 AniCura Mediterrani Hospital Veterinari, 43204 Reus, Spain 4 Fundació Hospital Clínic Veterinari, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain 5 Departament de Biologia, Sanitat i Medi Ambient, Secció de Parasitologia, Facultat de Farmàcia i Ciències de l’Alimentació, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain 6 Department of Pathobiology and Population Sciences, The Royal Veterinary College, University of London, London NW1 0TU, UK * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Pathogens 2023, 12(6), 821; https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens12060821 Submission received: 28 March 2023 / Revised: 11 May 2023 / Accepted: 8 June 2023 / Published: 10 June 2023 (This article belongs to the Special Issue Parasitic Infections: Immunity, Vaccine and Drug Development) Downloadkeyboard_arrow_down Browse Figures Versions Notes Abstract Papular dermatitis is a cutaneous manifestation of canine Leishmania infantum infection associated with mild disease. Although it is a typical presentation, nowadays, there is still no established treatment. This study evaluated the safety and clinical efficacy of local meglumine antimoniate, locally administered polyhexamethylene biguanide (PHMB) alone or PHMB in combination with a Toll-like receptor 4 agonist (TLR4a) for the treatment of papular dermatitis due to L. infantum and assessed parasitological and immunological markers in this disease. Twenty-eight dogs with papular dermatitis were divided randomly into four different groups; three of them were considered treatment groups: PHMB (n = 5), PHMB + TLR4a (n = 4), and meglumine antimoniate (n = 10)), and the remaining were considered the placebo group (n = 9), which was further subdivided into two sub-groups: diluent (n = 5) and TLR4a (n = 4). Dogs were treated locally every 12 h for four weeks. Compared to placebo, local administration of PHMB (alone or with TLR4a) showed a higher tendency towards resolution of papular dermatitis due to L. infantum infection at day 15 (χ2 = 5.78; df = 2, p = 0.06) and day 30 (χ2 = 4.; df = 2, p = 0.12), while local meglumine antimoniate administration demonstrated the fastest clinical resolution after 15 (χ2 = 12.58; df = 2, p = 0.002) and 30 days post-treatment (χ2 = 9.47; df = 2, p = 0.009). Meglumine antimoniate showed a higher tendency towards resolution at day 30 when compared with PHMB (alone or with TLR4a) (χ2 = 4.74; df = 2, p = 0.09). In conclusion, the local administration of meglumine antimoniate appears to be safe and clinically efficient for the treatment of canine papular dermatitis due to L. infantum infection. Keywords: canine; cutaneous lesions; immunotherapy; leishmaniosis; local treatment; toll-like agonist