Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease that requires better understanding since it continues to be a significant health problem in many parts of the world. Leprosy reactions are acute inflammatory episodes regarded as the central etiology of nerve damage in the disease. The activation of endothelium is a relevant phenomenon to be investigated in leprosy reactions. The present study evaluated t...

After sustained exposure to Mycobacterium leprae, only a subset of exposed individuals develops clinical leprosy. Moreover, leprosy patients show a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations that extend from the paucibacillary (PB) to the multibacillary (MB) form of the disease. This "polarization" of leprosy has long been a major focus of investigation for immunologists because of the different ...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Altered serum adenosine deaminase (ADA) levels have been recorded in various diseases involving lymphocytes and/or lymphoreticular system including leprosy. The study was planned to evaluate alterations in serum ADA levels, if any, in reactional and non-reactional leprosy. METHODS Eighty patients of leprosy, comprising 60 patients of non-reactional leprosy and 20 patients ...

This is a report on eight non-HIV infected leprosy patients presenting unusual co-infection with other, often neglected, tropical diseases, namely: American tegumentary leishmaniasis (ATL), sporotrichosis, and cryptococcosis. To the best of our knowledge, there have been very few ATL-leprosy co-infection reports in the literature to date and only one previous description of the coexistence of l...

The global leprosy burden in terms of new case detection does not seem to show a declining trend. India continues to be one of the major contributors to the leprosy burden. It is well known that the presence of an index case is a risk factor for leprosy among household contacts. The Blue Peter Health and Research centre (BPHRC), a leprosy referral centre in South India, observed the presence of...

Hansen's disease, also known as leprosy, is an infectious disease still prevalent in Brazil. It is a chronic illness with acute immunological phenomena known as leprosy reactions. In the Federal District of Brazil, the University Hospital of Brasília is the reference centre for leprosy care. The study aimed to characterize the clinical and epidemiological profile of Hansen's disease patients at...

A 24 year old man admitted to hospital with borderline lepromatous leprosy was treated with rifampicin, dapsone, and clofazimine. After four months he developed a reversal reaction and the diagnosis was modified to borderline tuberculoid leprosy. The dose of clofazimine was raised and prednisolone added to the regimen without any symptomatic response. His condition improved dramatically after f...

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have discovered 35 susceptible leprosy loci, but the cumulative effects of these loci can only partially explain overall risk leprosy, and causal variants genes within remain to be clarified. Here we performed a meta-GWAS analysis in two newly generated (5,007 cases 4,579 controls) multiple previously published (2,277 3,159 datasets. Four novel 14 reported...

Dapsone first came into medicine as an antibacterial agent but was found to be less effective than other sulfonamides. Likewise its activity against tuberculosis was disappointing. Nevertheless, it has been the main stay in the treatment of leprosy. It also has some action against malaria and other parasites. Nowadays, after leprosy, dapsone has proved as a valuable drug in the treatment of a w...

Leprosy persists in many Pacific countries, but attitudes and knowledge of leprosy among Pacific communities have not been well investigated. The lack of disease knowledge and stigma are major barriers to implementing case-finding strategies and prophylaxis programmes designed to eradicate leprosy. A survey of Pacific Island adults aged 18 years and older, and living in Christchurch, New Zealan...