The topical treatment of old world cutaneous leishmaniasis with gentian violet along with cryotherapy: a pilot single-blind randomized controlled clinical trial.

INTRODUCTION

The promising non-clinical antileishmanial effects of gentian violet (GV) encouraged us to evaluate the additive effect of GV on cryotherapy.

METHODS

For 8 weeks, 59/161 cutaneous leishmaniasis patients/lesions underwent cryotherapy alone (group 1) or cryotherapy accompanied by 1% GV application (group 2). The primary endpoint was clinical response.

RESULTS

Ultimately, 54.7% and 45.3% of the significantly cured lesions belonged to groups 1 and 2, respectively, which was not statistically significant. The clinical response was significantly different between the two groups at the end of the fourth week.

CONCLUSIONS

Although the clinical response of the two groups was significantly different at the end of the fourth week, application of GV did not increase the efficacy of cryotherapy.