Visceral leishmaniasis in a lung transplant recipient: usefulness of highly sensitive real‐time polymerase chain reaction for preemptive diagnosis

We report the case of a lung transplant recipient in whom the diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis ( VL ) was made by detection of parasites in a peripheral blood smear when the parasite load already reached 8.9 × 10 3 parasites/mL. We demonstrated that the VL diagnosis could have been done months before the development of symptoms by the use of L eishmania ‐specific real‐time polymerase chain reaction ( PCR ), suggesting the role of preemptive PCR ‐based diagnosis in transplant recipients at risk for VL .