Clinical efficacy and tolerance of miltefosine in the treatment of canine leishmaniosis

Abstract

The study was aimed to assess the efficacy and tolerance profiles of an oral administration miltefosine drug (Milteforan®, Virbac) in dogs with natural leishmaniosis. In this multicentric open trial, 96 dogs were treated with the drug administered orally at a dose of 2 mg/kg body weight once a day for 28 days. During the 56-day trial, clinical signs of the dogs were monitored every 2 weeks. On the first and the last visits, blood and bone marrow samples were collected for laboratory analyses. According to clinical scores, the treatment demonstrated a significant time-dependent therapeutic effect resulting in a 61.2% mean reduction on day 56. Hematologic and biochemical analyses showed improvements in most of the parameters examined, supporting the observed clinical efficacy of the drug. Overall, veterinarians estimated that 82.7% of the dogs treated with the miltefosine drug showed an equal or higher treatment efficacy than other antileishmanial drugs. During the trial, the adverse reactions probably associated with the drug treatment were observed in 11.7% of the dogs. However, they were not serious. The most frequent one was vomiting, which was transient, self-limiting, and reversible. These data demonstrate that the drug, at the recommended dose and treatment regime, was safe and efficacious for the treatment of canine leishmaniosis. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.