This study aimed to study the effective antimonial therapy on circulating levels proinflammatory cytokines, and their effect on susceptibility to cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) infection in the Iraqi population. Fifty CssL patients were treated with pentavalent antimonial salts (pentostam) for 7 weeks. Leishmania species were identified by Nested-Polymerase chain reaction method, and in all the cases the strains corresponded to Leishmania major. Circulating plasma levels of the proinflammatory cytokines interleukin-1 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha were determined for CL patients and healthy subjects before and during 7 weeks after the treatment were started. Concentrations were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay technique using a quantitative sandwich enzyme immunoassay technique. Proinflammatory cytokines significantly increased after 7 days postinfection compared to levels in the pretreatment patients. It was clearly recorded in the present study that the level of interleukin-1 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha in the serum of CL patients was responsively increasing with the antimonial therapy dose.

Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a parasitic disease transmitted by biting of the sandfly; it is a severe health problem in many regions of the world. The disease is endemic in Iraq and other countries. In Iraq, there are two main species of the genus Leishmania causing the infection: L. tropica and L. major. Previous studies suggested that a genetic makeup of host also had an essential role in the outcome of the disease. The present study investigated the association between CL and functionally active polymorphisms in the macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF gene). Samples of peripheral blood were collected from 60 patients with CL and 32 apparently healthy controls. MIF-173G > C polymorphism was detected in patients and control groups by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) technique. There was no statistically significant difference in the MIF-173G > C polymorphism between the CL patients and the healthy controls (P = 0.234), as well as no association between MIF-173G > C polymorphisms and CL; the frequency of allele C showed a trend towards lower frequency in patients as compared to that observed in the control group (P = 0.512).

Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a vector-borne disease and endemic in most regions of Iraq, especially in the regions with poor populations. Natural resistance associated macrophage protein 1 (NRAMP1) gene plays an essential role in susceptibility to CL and disease pathology. This study aimed to study the polymorphism in NRAMP1 gene, and tried to identify an association between gene variants and susceptibility to CL infection in Iraqi population / AL-Muthanna province. Samples of peripheral blood were collected from 60 patients with CL and 32 apparently healthy controls. NRAMP1 (D543N) polymorphism was detected in patients and control groups by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) technique. The results indicated a statistically significant difference in genotype distribution between CL cases and healthy controls (p = 0.036), and the results indicated that genetic variations of D543N were not associated with susceptibility to CL infection, and the frequency of allele A was greater in controls than in patients with statistical significance of p = 0.01.