Leishmaniasis cutánea americana en Venezuela, bienio 2008-2009

the epidemiological report of american cutaneous leishmaniasis (acl) in venezuela for the years 2008-2009 is presented. it describes the general epidemiological characteristics, together with some clinical and immunological aspects of its different clinical forms. this was performed by analyzing the database of the leishmaniasis national registry of the instituto de biomedicina. the data was analyzed using epi info 3.5.1 and excel. a total of 4,640 cases of different clinical forms of cutaneous leishmaniasis were diagnosed during 2008-2009, i. e. 2,320 cases per year with an average annual rate of 8.25 per 100,000 inhabitants. it is predominant in males, with a sex ratio of 1.84 for the period under study. cases in all ages, with numerical predominance in the group of 5 to 34 years, mean age were 31.09 and 33.91 years for 2008 and 2009 respectively. regarding the occupation, 22.39% are people of the agricultural sector, followed by students with 20.88% of cases. cases were recorded in all states but nueva esparta, the states with the largest number of cases were lara with 910 (19.61%), miranda 650 (14.01%) and táchira with 488 (10.52%). in terms of clinical forms, clear predominance was observed of localized cutaneous leishmaniasis with 97.84 % (4,540) cases. while localized forms are distributed nationwide, diffuse forms predominate in the lara state (63.64%, 7/11), muco-cutaneous forms predominate in the states of bolivar (21.74%, 10/46), portuguesa (15.22%, 7/46) and miranda, táchira, zulia (10.87%, 5/46 each one) and finally, the intermediate forms in the states of monagas (30.23%, 13/43), miranda (18.60%, 8/43) and táchira (13.95%, 6/43). the clinical and immunological characteristics studied varied according to the different clinical forms. in average, more than 90% (93.39% in 2008 and 89.81% in 2009) of the cases were diagnosed with direct smear. 88.86% of the patients received immunotherapy as first choice treatment. in conclusion, a clinical-epidemiological