New delivery systems for amphotericin B applied to the improvement of leishmaniasis treatment

© 2015, Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical. All rights reserved. Leishmaniasis is one of the six major tropical diseases targeted by the World Health Organization. It is a life-threatening disease of medical, social and economic importance in endemic areas. No vaccine is yet available for hum...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Chávez-Fumagalli, Miguel A., Soto, Manuel, Ferraz Coelho, Eduardo Antonio
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2015
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/139947
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/139947
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Nanoparticles
Toxicity
Treatment
Lipid-based formulations
Amphotericin B
Leishmaniasis
Descripción
Sumario:© 2015, Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical. All rights reserved. Leishmaniasis is one of the six major tropical diseases targeted by the World Health Organization. It is a life-threatening disease of medical, social and economic importance in endemic areas. No vaccine is yet available for human use, and chemotherapy presents several problems. Pentavalent antimonials have been the drugs of choice to treat the disease for more than six decades; however, they exhibit high toxicity and are not indicated for children, for pregnant or breastfeeding women or for chronically ill patients. Amphotericin B (AmpB) is a second-line drug, and although it has been increasingly used to treat visceral leishmaniasis (VL), its clinical use has been hampered due to its high toxicity. This review focuses on the development and in vivo usage of new delivery systems for AmpB that aim to decrease its toxicity without altering its therapeutic efficacy. These new formulations, when adjusted with regard to their production costs, may be considered new drug delivery systems that promise to improve the treatment of leishmaniasis, by reducing the side effects and the number of doses while permitting a satisfactory cost-benefit ratio.