Pilot Study Using a Heat Pack to Treat Cutaneous Leishmaniasis

Current standard therapies with chemotherapy (CT) for Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (CL) are expensive, toxic/allergenic, frequently ineffective, burdensome, and often unavailable. Thermotherapy is a clinically validated first line alternative for the treatment of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in South America. However, current heat-delivery modalities are either too costly or lack governmental approval required to be made widely available to endemic areas. The investigators have adapted a reliable, safe, and low-cost heat pack for Cutaneous Leishmaniasis that the investigators have named the HECT-CL device. In this pilot study the investigators will enroll 25 patients who have either failed or are not candidates for pentivalent antimonies. The hypothesis states that the HECT-CL device demonstrates efficacy non-statistically inferior to estimates for current South American Pentavalent Antimonial cure rates (76%) while demonstrating basic safety and tolerability.