clinical manifestations and distribution of cutaneous leishmaniasis in pakistan皮肤利什曼病的临床表现和分布在巴基斯坦.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Tropical Medicine Volume 2011, Article ID 359145, 8 pages doi:10.1155/2011/359145 Review Article Clinical Manifestations and Distribution of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in Pakistan Abaseen Khan Afghan, Masoom Kassi, Pashtoon Murtaza Kasi, Adil Ayub, Niamatullah Kakar, and Shah Muhammad Marri Department of Pathology, Bolan Medical College, 8-13/36 Kasi Road, Balochistan, Quetta 87300, Pakistan Correspondence should be addressed to Pashtoon Murtaza Kasi, pashtoon.kasi@ Received 30 June 2011; Accepted 6 September 2011 Academic Editor: Cristina Riera Copyright © 2011 Abaseen Khan Afghan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a rising epidemic in Pakistan. It is a major public health problem in the country especially alongside regions bordering the neighboring Afghanistan and cities that have had the maximum influx of refugees. The purpose of our paper is to highlight the diverse clinical manifestations of the disease seen along with the geographic areas affected, where the hosts are particularly susceptible. This would also be helpful in presenting the broad spectrum of the disease for training of health care workers and help in surveillance of CL in the region. The increased clinical diversity and the spectrum of phenotypic manifestations noted underscore the fact that the diagnosis of CL should be not only considered when dealing with common skin lesions, but also highly suspected by dermatologists and even primary care physicians even when encountering uncommon pathologies. Hence, we would strongly advocat