Anticipating the failure of leishmaniasis with precise medicine

Almost a million people around the world are harassed annually through the skin leishmanasis, a destructive skin infection caused by Leishmania’s parasite. Impacting mainly on sensitive populations in tropical and subtropical regions, such as North Africa and South America, this disease develops in areas marked by malnutrition, bad apartment and movement of the population. Left untreated, it can lead to all life of scars, devastating disability and a deep social stigma. Despite its global influence, there is no vaccine, and the existing treatment methods are ineffective, toxic and difficult to manage.

A new study published in the journal April 4, 2025 can transform the way they approach healthcare by treating this distorting disease. A team of scientists from the University of Maryland and Centro Internacional de Entrenamiento E Investigaciones Médicas (Cideim) in Colombia discovered the way of predicting whether a patient suffering from leishmaniosis will react to the most common treatment, potentially saving patients from expensive and toxic drugs.

It is widely said that the medicine may be worse than the disease. This is very true for our current leishmaniosis skin. These drugs have a high toxicity profile, so patients may feel sick for weeks during treatment. There is no guarantee that treatment will be effective, so patients can stop treating or visiting another doctor to repeat this process. And even if they are cured, they will probably have a scar forever. This is the reality of leishmaniosis in Colombia and many other countries around the world. “

Maria Adelaida Gomez, a microbiologist with Cideim and the author of the study

UMD Professor of Biology of Cell and Molecular Genetics.

“This failure indicator remains even when patients completing the full course of treatment, which takes up to 14 weeks,” said El-Sayed. “Finding out how effective medications on the patient will be early is very important because it can prevent weeks or months of ineffective treatment and help patients in access to more appropriate alternatives.”

The team stated that patients who did not react to meglumines antimonhans showed a characteristic pattern in their immune system, permanent inflammation called interferon type I. This answer is usually a key part of the body’s early response system against viruses, helping cells in detecting pathogen and recruitment of resources to fight it.

“Although this answer is necessary to fight some infections, we have found that when it remains too long, it may interfere with the treatment and healing process in patients with skin leishmaniosis,” explained El-Sayed. “This increased type of type I interferon was observed in several innate types of immune cells, which we analyzed in the patient’s blood samples. By following these changes in the entire treatment process, we identified a clear pattern that distinguishes patients who successfully recover from those who will not react to standard medicines.”

Scientists have also developed a sophisticated scoring system that can accurately predict the results of the treatment of newly diagnosed patients using advanced machine learning techniques. Analyzing the activity of only nine genes, they could predict whether the treatment would work on a skin patient with leishmaniasis with 90% accuracy.

“This is significant progress for healthcare professionals and scientists working on improving results in patients with skin leishmania,” said Gomez. “The disease begins to move to new places, such as the United States, which means that we need these resources more than ever.”

While the current test requires sophisticated laboratory equipment, the team is already working on creating a more portable and user -friendly version of technology for doctors in the field. Scientists hope that their new findings, especially in relation to the I interferon I interferon path, can be a promising path to develop new therapeutic leishmaniosis for skin. Their conclusions constitute a transition from more traditional approaches -which usually focus only on eliminating the methods of treating the parasite, which also take into account the patient’s natural immune answers.

“This is really one of the first attempts to translate the laboratory results of this disease into practical applications,” said El-Sayed. “Understanding why some patients do not respond to treatment, was a serious challenge in managing this disease. This work opens the door to precise medicine and developing better strategies that can personalize treatment for a wide patient range.”