Antimonials employed in the treatment of leishmaniaisis:: The state of the art

Antimony preparations are the drugs of choice for the treatment of leishmaniasis over 90 years, a disease that currently affects 12 million people worldwide. Its introduction was based on 19(th) century concepts of therapeutic effects of metal salts as arsenicals and other metals, most of them abandoned due to toxic effects or better drugs. In the last three decades, there was a great improvement in the knowledge of cell biology and immunology of those infections, but chemotherapy has not been improved in the same strength. The structure and mechanism of action of the two pentavalent antimonial drugs of choice, meglumine antimoniate and sodium stibogluconate, are not well known and the contamination of those pharmaceutical by toxic contaminants have been verified.