Study of sympathetic skin response in visceral leishmaniasis

Neurologic changes in visceral leishmaniasis are rarely reported. Some articles have reported symptoms suggestive of peripheral neuropathy and showed some degree of axonal degeneration and demyelination. The main purpose of the present study was to identify and quantitatively evaluate sympathetic dysfunction in VL.

Twenty patients with visceral leishmaniasis and 20 healthy controls were studied. All the patients and controls were examined at first and skin sympathetic response was measured in all of the patients and control group by standard protocol.

The patients had mean age of 24.2 +/- 17.8 months. The SSR to the electrical stimulus was absent in 10 patients with VL. In four patients all responses were present and, in four patients only one response from hand or foot was present and, in two cases responses were present from both hands. For right median nerve, median latency was 2.4 (min: 1.19, max: 6.92) seconds.

In conclusion impairment of SSR was demonstrated electrophysiologically in the patients with visceral leishmaniasis.