Skin uptake, distribution, and elimination of antimony following administration of sodium stibogluconate to patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis.

We examined in this study the pharmacokinetics of Sb in the affected skin and normal skin of patients treated with sodium stibogluconate for cutaneous leishmaniasis and compared the results with those for the blood. The procedure was fully explained, and a written consent was obtained from each of nine patients. After a dose of sodium stibogluconate equivalent to 600 mg of Sb was administered intramuscularly, small skin biopsies were collected under local anesthesia at different time intervals from the circumferences of the lesions and simultaneously from normal skin. Antimony was measured in these biopsies after suitable ashing and processing by flameless atomic absorption spectrophotometry. The means (with standard errors of the means in parentheses) of the peak concentration, time to peak concentration, area under the curve, half-life, and mean residence time in lesions were 5.02 (1.43) micrograms/g, 2.1 (0.4) h, 32.8 (6.1) micrograms.h/g, 6.88 (0.54) h, and 10.4 (1.2) h, respectively, and those in normal skin were 6.56 (2.01) micrograms/g, 2.6 (0.8) h, 44.0 (15.8) micrograms.h/g, 5.44 (0.83) h, and 8.08 (1.34) h, respectively. There was no significant difference in any of these parameters between lesions and normal skin, whereas the differences in peak concentration, half-life, and mean residence time between lesions and whole blood were significant (P < or = 0.05). The penetration of Sb into skin, either affected or normal, as measured by the skin/blood area under the curve ratio appears to be complete, but the disposition is slow compared with that from the blood.