Nilforoushzadeh 2006

Methods	Study design: randomised controlled trial Setting/location: Skin Disease and Leishmaniasis Research Center (SDLRC), Isfahan, Iran Study period: around 5 months Sample size calculation: not described
Participants	Type of Leishmania: not mentioned Inclusion criteria: CL confirmed with direct smear Exclusion criteria: pregnant or nursing mothers, treated previously for CL, any known intercurrent illness or a history of allergy to MA, palpebral lesions, having > 5 lesions, lesion > 3 cm, duration of lesions was > 12 weeks N randomised: 80: 40 in each group Withdrawals: 7 N assessed: 73: 38 in group 1 and 35 in group 2 Age: range 5‐75 years Baseline data: the most common clinical type of the lesions in both groups was papule (50% in TCA and 44% in the ILMA group) and nodule (25% in TCA and 24% in the ILMA group). Mean number of lesions: TCA: 1.2; ILMA: 1.4
Interventions	Type of interventions: Group 1: TCA 50% (wt/vol) was applied on the lesions every 2 weeks up to 3 times Group 2: ILMA weekly up to 6 weeks Duration of intervention: up to 6 weeks
Outcomes	Healing: complete cure was defined as complete healing and re‐epithelialisation of the lesion(s); partial care as partial clinical improvement with reduction in erythema, induration and size of the lesions; treatment failure as the absence of any change or worsening of the lesion(s) Duration of remission and percentage of people with treated lesions that recur after 3 months of follow‐up Adverse effects Microbiological or histopathological cure of skin lesions Time points reported: after the last treatment session, 1 and 3 months post‐treatment. Complete cure was reported at 4 and 6 weeks of the treatment period. Recurrence was assessed at 3 months follow‐up
Notes	Study funding sources: not reported Possible conflicts of interest: none declared
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Random digit table
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Not described
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	Quote: "Unblindness is a limitation of this study"
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Not described
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	High risk	Quote: "For 80 patients, which participated in the study, 73 cases completed the study" Comment: the results for the dropouts were excluded from the statistical analysis. We think missing outcome data likely to be related to true outcome.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	The study protocol is not available, but it is clear that the published reports include all expected outcomes.
Other bias	High risk	Sample size calculation and reporting of Leishmania spp involved was not correctly reported