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Magdi Ismail, Aiesha Metwally, Samia William, Sana Botros, Adel Farghally, Liang-Fang Tao, Tim A. Day, James L. Bennett
American Journal of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene 60:932-935
Recent reports suggest that resistance to praziquantel (PZQ)
maybe developing. This would not be surprising in countries like
Egypt where the drug has been used aggressively for more than
10 years. The classic phenotype of drug resistance is a significant
increase in the ED-50 value of isolates retrieve from patients
not responding to the drug. In a previous publication we reported
that such phenotypes have been isolated from humans infected with
Schistosoma mansoni.
Since the action of PZQ is dependent upon both the drug and host factors, most notably the immune system, we analyzed the quantitative effects of PZQ on single worms that differed in their response to PZQ when maintained in mice. Our hypothesis was that the in vitro action of the drug would correlate with its in vivo action. We confirmed this hypothesis and conclude that the drug's in vitro action is related to its in vivo action. Knowing this relationship will assist in our ability to detect or survey for the PZQ resistant phenotype in human populations.