Duodenal leishmaniasis in a HIV patient

We report the case of a 31-year-old male who was diagnosed with HIV infection eleven years ago. At this moment his disease is in stage C3. He consulted because of watery diarrhea with no pathologic products for the last 5 months. He also reported continual abdominal pain unrelated to food ingestion. Over those months he lost about 7-8 kg of body weight, and some skin nodes developed in different parts of his body. Laboratory parameters were nonspecific in the first study. Antibodies against Leishmania, CMV, syphilis, HBV, and HCVwere all negative. Blood and stool cultures and parasite tests were all negative, too. A biopsy was obtained from skin nodes, which was positive for Leishmania, and a digestive endoscopy was carried out, which showed a paved, nodular mucosa all over the duodenum, from which we took several biopsies (Figs. 1 and 2). A histological study revealed a clear, severe infiltration of duodenal villi by macrophages filled with Leishmania bodies (Fig. 3). Diagnosis: malabsorption due to visceral leishmaniasis with skin and small-bowel infiltration in a HIV patient.