No adverse events were associated with injections of either adjuvant or vaccine, based on clinical observations and hematological/biochemical analyses ( Tables S3–S7 in Supplemental Data). In agreement with Trial #1, dogs in the Saline group did not spontaneously cure (Fig. 2A). CS of five dogs in the Saline group increased by 1.4 (range: −1 to +5, where a positive difference equates with worsening disease symptoms and a negative difference indicates an improvement in clinical symptoms) between Day

0 and the endpoint (either Day 180 or at the time of death or rescue treatment) indicating increased disease severity in those dogs. Only one dog out of five (20%) in this group completed the 180-day study. In contrast to the Saline group, dogs in the Adjuvant and Vaccine groups showed clinical improvement (Fig. 2). Changes in CS for the Adjuvant group and the Vaccine group were −2 (range: selleck chemicals −4 to +3) and −1.6 (range: −6 to +4), respectively. Three out of five dogs (60%) in the Adjuvant group and 5 out of 10 dogs (50%) in the Vaccine group completed JNJ-26481585 purchase the study alive and without drug treatment (Table 3). Of the three Adjuvant-group dogs completing the study, two dogs (Day 0 CS = 6 and 7) received four injections; the third dog (Day 0 CS = 4) received six injections of MPL-SE. The five dogs in the Vaccine group

that finished the study alive and without rescue treatment all had a Day 0 CS <8; these dogs received six injections. In contrast, of the four dogs in the Vaccine group that were given

rescue treatment (Glucantime and/or amphotericin B), three had a Day 0 CS ≥8 (and two of the three received only four vaccinations). Clinical improvement, including lower CS, brought by the vaccine or adjuvant was often associated with clearance of parasites. This was observed for many of the improved dogs in the vaccine and adjuvant groups that were parasitologically negative for most, if not all, of the post-enrollment time points examined (Table Oxymatrine 4). In contrast, the saline placebo dogs and most of the other dogs that were eventually removed from the study, either because they showed no clinical improvement or because they died during the study period, remained parasitologically positive (Table 4). The observations recorded in Table 3 and Table 4 and the graphs in Fig. 2B and 2C suggest that the vaccine worked better in moderately sick dogs than in severely sick dogs. No clinical improvement was observed for dogs in the Vaccine group that were severely sick at the time of inclusion (CS ≥8 at Day 0, n = 4). The kinetics of CS for dogs scoring ≥8 was very similar for the Saline group and Vaccine group ( Fig. 2B). In contrast, moderately sick dogs (CS <8 at Day 0, n = 6) responded better to the vaccine; the CS for these dogs decreased by a mean 2.8 points, and 83% of them completed the 180-day study.