[Adult Mediterranean visceral leishmaniasis: report of 12 cases (author's transl)]

Mediterranean visceral leishmaniasis is not only a children disease. We observed 12 adult cases since 1971. Clinical presentation usually associates anarchic fever and splenomegaly, with anaemia, leucopenia, increased sedimentation rate and hypergammaglobulinemia. We must think to kala-azar, specially after a stay in an endemic country (mediterranean area), ask for parasites on bone-marrow smears and more often immunological diagnosis. Spontaneously fatal, the disease is easily cured by antimony derivatives.