The authors describe a retrospective and prospective study of 6 patients with diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis observed in the State of Maranhão, since 1974. The patients comefromdifferentruralregions of the state and in all of them Leishmania (Leishmania) amazonensis was the cause five of the patients initiated their disease in the first decade of life. All the patients first had a solitary, nodular lesion, that after a variable period of time, disseminated and acquired other aspects. Sequentially the patients presented multiple nodular and ulcerative lesions, negative leishmania skin-lests and a refractory response to the therapeutic schedules used up to the present.
Diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis; Leishmania (Leishmania) amazonensis; Stale of Maranhão