[6] Side effects are common and include loss of appetite, nausea, muscle pains, headache, and feeling tired.

Cardiac conduction disturbances are less common, but electrocardiograph (ECG) monitoring while the medicine is injected is advisable and changes quickly reverse after the drug is stopped or the infusion rate is decreased.

It can also be given intralesionally when treating cutaneous leishmaniasis (i.e., injected directly into the area of infected skin) and again, this is exceedingly painful and does not give results superior to intravenous administration.

[citation needed] Sodium stibogluconate can also cause a reduced appetite, metallic taste in mouth, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, headache, tiredness, joint pains, muscle aches, dizziness, and anaphylaxis.

[citation needed] Sodium stibogluconate is available in the United Kingdom as Pentostam, where it is manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.

The chemotherapeutic index was established by Leonard Goodwin during the Second World War when a treatment was urgently required for Allied troops during the invasion of Sicily.

[12] The duration of treatment is usually 10 to 21 days and depends on the species of Leishmania and the type of infection (cutaneous or visceral).

Bermann et al. studied the effects of stibogluconate on Leishmania mexicana and demonstrated a 56–65% reduction in incorporation of a label into purine nucleoside triphosphates (ATP and GTP) as well as between a 34–60% increase of label incorporation into purine nucleoside mono- and diphosphates (AMP, GMP, ADP, and GDP) following 4 hour exposure to stibogluconate.