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Use of FTA Cards for Direct Sampling of Patients' Lesions in the Ecological Study of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis.

Kato H, Cáceres AG, Mimori T, Ishimaru Y, Sayed AS, Fujita M, Iwata H, Uezato H, Velez LN, Gomez EA, Hashiguchi Y

Department of Veterinary Hygiene, Faculty of Agriculture, Yamaguchi University, Yamaguchi, Japan; Sección de Entomología, Instituto de Medicina Tropical "Daniel A. Carrion", Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, and Laboratorio de Entomología, Instituto Nacional de Salud, Lima, Perú; Department of Microbiology, School of Health Sciences, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, Japan; Department of Animal Hygiene and Zoonoses, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Assiut University, Egypt; Department of Dermatology, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan; Programa de Leishmaniasis and Programa de Oncocercosis, Servicio Nacional de Erradicacion de la Malaria (SNEM), Ministerio de Salud Publica, Ecuador; and Department of Parasitology, Kochi Medical School, Kochi University, Kochi, Japan.

FTA card (Whatman) was assessed for the utility as a molecular epidemiological tool in sample collections from patients with leishmaniasis in Peru since the card has a variety of merits; less invasive for the patients and easy handling for both physicians and other medical personnel at sample collection or diagnosis, in addition to its simplicity and easy countrywide and/or inter-countrywide transportation for the analysis. Samples were collected from 132 patients suspected of having leishmaniasis, and Leishmania species were successfully identified in samples from 81 patients in 15 departments of Peru by cytochrome b and mannose phosphate isomerase gene analyses. Of these, 61.7 % were identified as Leishmania (Viannia) peruviana, 22.2 % was L. (V.) braziliensis, 12.3 % was L. (V.) guyanensis, 2.5 % was L. (V.) shawi, and 1.2 % was L. (V.) lainsoni. The three dominant species, L. (V.) peruviana, L. (V.) braziliensis and L. (V.) guyanensis, were mainly found in the Andean highlands, in the tropical rainforest, and in northern and central rainforest regions, respectively. This is the first time L. (V.) shawi has been identified outside of Brazil. The present study showed that FTA card will be a useful tool for the ecological study of different forms of leishmaniasis. Further, sampling collection directly from patients' lesions by using FTA card eliminates 1) the possibility of contamination of Leishmania isolates, during short and/or long term passages of culture in vitro in each laboratory, and 2) the painfulness and suffering of patients by taking samples of skin biopsy.

Published 19 August 2010 in J Clin Microbiol.
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