Use of in vitro method to assess different brands of anti-leishmanial drugs.

Reports in the literature indicate the use of animal models for testing newer anti-leishmanial drugs in vivo. However, in certain established cell lines and macrophages in vitro models have the advantage over the in vivo system of simplicity and speed with which the results can be obtained. A simple in vitro system using peritoneal exudate macrophages of BALB/c mice infected with Leishmania donovani promastigotes has been tested for its use in determining the efficacy of several new drugs. Two well-established drugs, amphotericin B and sodium stibogluconate, as expected, could kill the intracellular parasites effectively. Two relatively new drugs not routinely used against leishmania, rifampicin and metronidazole at concentrations of 20 micrograms/ml and 10 micrograms/ml, respectively, were also able to kill the intracellular leishmania parasites effectively. Critical factors for drug testing in vitro have been elucidated: the most important being the temperature of incubation after infection.