Monitoring of the Immune Response Activity in Iraqi Patients Infected with Cutaneous Leishmaniasis by IFN-γ and MIG Evaluation During Different Stages of Infection

Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is one of the most prevalent cutaneous parasitic protozoan infections in Iraq; characterized by a chronic infection and granulomatous disease that invades the skin. Type 1 immune was predominates in CL patients with exacerbated production of pro-inflammatory cytokine, therefore this study aimed to evaluate serum level of interferon gamma (IFN-γ) and monokine induce by interferon gamma (MIG/CXCl9) as a useful markers of disease development in patients during different stage of infection (<1 month .. early , 1-6 month.. chronic and >6 months.. late). The result showed that there was an early effort to eliminate the parasite proliferation which illustrated by a high significant increase of both IFN-γ and MIG during the early stage of infection, but this response was downregulated during the chronic stage of infection, which observed by low levels of both studied cytokine and monokine, nevertheless this down-regulation was transient where the levels to increase returns during the late stage of infection. The evaluation of IFN-γ and MIG considered as a biological markers of disease activity in each stage of infection.