Current drugs for the treatment of leishmaniasis are far from satisfactory and no effective vaccine is available. In
the recent years, the pharmaceutical technology has made a giant’s causeway and is able to offer a plethora of
delivery systems (DS) and nanomedicines that could improve the treatment and profilaxis of leishmaniasis. This
article reviews the major class of DS evaluated as antileishmanial drugs carriers or as adjuvants in Leishmania
vaccines. On regarding the published works we can conclude that pharmaceutical technology has shown potential
to prepare DS of great efficacy for treating and preventing leishmaniasis, as exemplified in Ambisome® or in the
adjuvant MPL-SE®. However, Ambisome® is not choice for many people because of its high cost. Thus, nowadays
there are significant issues to resolve in order to get products to market based on these technologies.
Key words: Treatment, prevention, drugs, leishmaniasis.