Sir.—Özsoylu1 presented the results of his study on visceral leishmaniasis and its treatment in children in the September 1992 issue of AJDC. We want to present our results with a different combined treatment: meglumine antimonate (as Glucantim) and allopurinol.
We describe 110 children with visceral leishmaniasis ranging in age from 6 months to 6 years. In most children, the disease had the typical picture of irregular fever, liver and spleen enlargement, anemia, and pancytopenia. All children were in satisfactory clinical condition; the diagnosis was confirmed by the presence of Leishmania donovani in bone marrow. Forty-six patients, diagnosed from 1973 through 1985, received conventional treatment with intramuscular meglumine antimonate alone (100 mg/kg daily) for 30 days.2
From 1986 through 1992, we used allopurinol and pentavalent antimony in the treatment of 64 patients admitted in our department who were diagnosed as having visceral leishmaniasis. They received allopurinol (25 mg/kg