TABLE 1.

Proinflammatory cytokine levels for Controls and for patients with CL before and after antimonial therapy

Cytokine	Cytokine levels (pg/ml) fora:
	Control group (n = 24)	Patient group before therapy (n = 28)	Patient group after 3rd week of treatment (n = 28)
IL-1β	2.015 ± 0.89	5.02 ± 2.05***	16.54 ± 9.20***
IL-6	4.78 ± 1.70	6.48 ± 2.85**	66.71 ± 45.91***
IL-8	14.31 ± 13.00	28.45 ± 21.10***	698.05 ± 235.85***
TNF-α	15.77 ± 6.23	21.83 ± 4.92**	77.21 ± 33.40***

^aAll results were expressed as means ± standard deviation. Asterisks at the right of before-therapy and 3rd-week-of-treatment group values describe differences between control and before-therapy groups and before-therapy and 3rd-week-of-treatment groups. *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001.