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Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Fiocruz
ISSN: 1678-8060
EISSN: 1678-8060
Vol. 99, No. 8, 2004, pp. 889-893
Bioline Code: oc04174
Full paper language: English
Document type: Research Article
Document available free of charge

Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Vol. 99, No. 8, 2004, pp. 889-893

 en Subclinical Form of the American Visceral Leishmaniasis
Mônica Elinor Alves Gama; Jackson Maurício Lopes Costa; Cláudia Maria Castro Gomes & Carlos Eduardo Pereira Corbett

Abstract

The subclinical form of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) shows nonspecific clinical manifestations, with difficulties being frequently met in its clinical characterization and diagnostic confirmation. Thus, the objective of the present study was to define the clinical-laboratory profile of this clinical form. A cohort study was conducted in the state of Maranhão, Brazil, from January/1998 to December/2000, with monthly follow-up of 784 children aged 0-5 years. Based on the clinical-laboratory parameters reported in the literature, four categories were established, with the children being classified (according to their clinical-evolutive behavior) as asymptomatic (N = 144), as having the subclinical form (N = 33) or the acute form (N = 12) or as subjects "without VL" (N = 595). Multiple discriminant analysis demonstrated that the combination of fever, hepatomegaly, hyperglobulinemia, and increased blood sedimentation rate (BSR) can predict the subclinical form of VL as long as it is not associated with splenomegaly or leukopenia. Subjects with the subclinical form did not show prolonged or intermittent evolution or progression to the acute form of VL. Subclinical cases have a profile differing from the remaining clinical forms of VL, being best characterized by the combination of fever, hepatomegaly, hyperglobulinemia, and increased BSR.

Keywords
visceral leishmaniasis - subclinical form - oligosymptomatic form

 
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