Mycobacterium leprae-specific and polyclonal immunoglobulin G (IgG) subclass and IgE antibodies in leprosy patients across the histopathological spectrum were determined by using a quantitative enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Antibody responses to M. leprae sonicates were detected only in IgG1, -2, and -3 subclasses. Even at 100-times-lower dilutions, very little IgG4 and IgE antibody activi...

The Lsr2 protein of Mycobacterium leprae and its synthetic peptides have been shown to elicit lymphoproliferation and gamma interferon (IFN-γ) release by peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of patients with lepromatous leprosy (M. Chaduvula, A. Murtaza, N. Misra, N. P. Narayan, V. Ramesh, H. K. Prasad, R. Rani, R. K. Chinnadurai, I. Nath, Infect. Immun. 80:742-752, 2012). PBMCs from 16 p...

A total of 46 Rhesus monkeys (RM) was inoculated with Mycobacterium leprae (ML) and followed clinically and immunologically for extended periods. Twenty-one (45.7%) of the RM developed leprosy spanning the known leprosy spectrum, with six of 21 (28.6%) having disease in the borderline lepromatous to lepromatous area of the spectrum. RM with paucibacillary forms of leprosy produced predominantly...

A 25-year-old male patient with florid lepromatous leprosy presented with right axillary lymphadenopathy and a discharging sinus. He also had scabies with chronic right otitis media. Histopathological examination of the lymph node revealed lepromatous lymphadenitis coexisting with tuberculosis. This unusual combination of two different clinical entities is recorded in this case report.

In 1 957 lepromatous patients were selected for a trial of diphenylthiourea (DPT or Ciba 1 906) and its effects were compared with the results obtained with diamino-diphenyl-sulphone (DDS) . The results were analysed at the end of two years when the project was stopped and all cases were placed on DDS. The subsequent history of the cases were investigated after six years ( i .e . in 1 963) . Th...

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha) in conjunction with interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) plays an important role in lymphocyte recruitment and granuloma formation in mycobacterial diseases. Lepromatous leprosy infections are typically associated with low to absent T cell responses and the absence of INF-gamma secretion. Chemokines such as IL-8, MCP-1, and MIP-1beta, have also been shown to recruit ne...

Sir, After reading the article by Ahmed & EI Tahir2 in Leprosy Review we would like to share our experiences in Chad. The Guera Prefecture, located in central Chad, covers a population of 300,000 scattered over an area of 60,000 km2 . Health services are poor, only 1 2 out of 32 designated health zones are covered by the health services. Even where health facilities exist, the quality of health...