Table 4.

Sensitivity of diagnostic tests used to identify Leishmania spp. causing cutaneous leishmaniasis, Hospital for Tropical Diseases, London, United Kingdom^*

Test	Old World CL, no. positive/no. tested (%)	New World CL, no. positive/no. tested (%)
Microscopy	38/61 (62)	90/117 (77)
Culture	33/63 (52)	78/114 (68)
PCR	67/78 (86)	124/129 (96)

^*CL = cutaneous leishmaniasis; PCR = polymerase chain reaction. Sensitivities reported are for the Hospital for Tropical Diseases PCR overall for New World CL and Old World CL. The primer set increased during the study (Figure 1), but individual sensitivities for each primer set have not been calculated. There were no patients from whom samples were culture positive and PCR negative.