Visceral leishmaniasis in HIV-infected patients is not always easy to diagnose because there are no specific signs or symptoms, serological tests are sometimes falsely negative or give dissociated results and parasites in bone marrow could be rare and hard to detect. Some biologic markers could be helpful when a diagnosis of viceral leishmaniasis is clinically suspected and serologic tests are dissociated. To assess a correlation between high levels of soluble interleukin-2 receptor (SIL-2 R) and visceral leishmaniasis in HIV infected patients, we determined seric levels of S IL-2 R in 4 patients with proved leishmaniasis (evidence of parasits in bone marrow) [group 1] and compared them to those of 12 HIV-infected patients without visceral leishmaniasis [group 2] and 10 seronegative patients without leishmaniasis. Levels of S IL-2 R in group 1 range from 223 to 1231 pM/ml (normal less than 130), in group 2 from 55 to 351 pM/ml (three patients with more than 130 pM/ml) and in group 3 from 7 to 33 pM/ml. High levels of S IL-2 R for three patients of group 2 were associated with another opportunistic disease (disseminated infection due to cytomagalovirus, disseminated lymphoma and cerebral toxoplasmosis). We have now to assess S IL-2 R as a marker of response to specific treatment and follow-up of visceral leishmaniasis. Although S IL-2 R demonstrated a poor specificity for the diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis in HIV-infectedpatients in this study, we found that all HIV-infected patients with evolutive visceral leishmaniais exhibited high levels of S IL-2 R.

HIV Infections/COMPLICATIONS/*METABOLISM Human Leishmaniasis, Visceral/COMPLICATIONS/*METABOLISM Receptors, Interleukin-2/*METABOLISM Solubility ABSTRACT

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