Antileishmanial chemotherapy: A literature review

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), leishmaniasis is one of the major tropical diseases. There are four clinical manifestations of this illness and the most severe form, sometimes lethal, is the visceral leishmaniasis (VL). To date, there is no effective vaccine available, being the chemotherapy the only way to treat this disease, although it presents serious limitations. Several strategies have been employed to improve the leishmaniasis treatment, among them, the use of drug combinations and the development of new drugs. The success in development of new antileishmanial agents depends on the knowledge of the Medicinal Chemistry related to the current treatments in use. For this reason, this review aims to analyze the current drugs, through the concepts of Medicinal Chemistry and the synthetic processes.