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

• Autor(a) principal: Chávez-Fumagalli,Miguel Angel
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Ribeiro,Tatiana Gomes, Castilho,Rachel Oliveira, Fernandes,Simone Odília Antunes, Cardoso,Valbert Nascimento, Coelho,Cecília Steinberg Perilo, Mendonça,Débora Vasconcelos Costa, Soto,Manuel, Tavares,Carlos Alberto Pereira, Faraco,André Augusto Gomes, Coelho,Eduardo Antonio Ferraz
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0037-86822015000300235
• topic: Amphotericin B; Leishmaniasis; Nanoparticles; Toxicity; Treatment; Lipid-based formulations

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.