Water-soluble polymer-drug conjugates for combination chemotherapy against visceral leishmaniasis.

There is a need for new safe, effective and short-course treatments for leishmaniasis; one strategy is to use combination chemotherapy. Polymer-drug conjugates have shown promise for the delivery of anti-leishmanial agents such as amphotericin B. In this paper, we report on the preparation and biological evaluation of polymer-drug conjugates of N-(2-hydroxypropyl)methacrylamide (HPMA), amphotericin B and alendronic acid. The combinatorial polymer-drug conjugates were effective anti-leishmanial agents in vitro and in vivo, but offered no advantage over the single poly(HPMA)-amphotericin B conjugates.