Evaluation of blood agar microtiter plates for culturing leishmania parasites to titrate parasite burden in spleen and peripheral blood of patients with visceral leishmaniasis.

Serial dilution of blood and spleen biopsy specimens, plated on Novy-MacNeal-Nicolle (NNN) blood agar using microtiter culture plates, is a sensitive and reproducible method for detection and growth of Leishmania parasites. Plates could be easily monitored, and growth could be rapidly detected. Moreover, parasite number may be estimated using this technique.