Alveolar bone loss and the duration of untreated disease were compared in 3 1 patients with lepromatous leprosy. In general , those patients with the longest confirmed untreated disease also had the greatest alveolar bone loss in the anterior maxi l la . These data , taken together wi th previous observations, suggest that early detection and uninterrupted treatment of lepromatous patients will...

The response to lepromin and Kveim antigens was compared and studied in 15 leprosy patients who were tuberculin negative. Of the 11 lepromin positive tuberculoid patients, 4 were Kveim positive, 1 was equivocal, and the rest were negative. Of the four lepromin negative lepromatous patients, one gave a positive Kveim test while the other three were negative. It has been shown that false-positive...

Over 100 patients with lepromatous leprosy were treated with rifampicin in a series of pilot, uncontrolled, and controlled trials in 1968-77. The rapid bactericidal effect of rifampicin on Mycobacterium leprae was confirmed. Clinical improvement became apparent sometimes as early as 14 days after the start of treatment. Nevertheless, a few persisting viable M leprae were detected as long as fiv...

The Ridley-Jopling classification places leprosy patients into a spectrum with polar tuberculoid (TT) and lepromatous (LL) and middle types of borderline tuberculoid (BT), mid-borderline (BB) and borderline lepromatous (BL) leprosy. These have been categorised, for treatment purposes, into paucibacillary (PB) and multibacillary (MB) depending on lesion counts and the results of skin smear exami...

Immunological responses to a panel of antigens were evaluated in 27 patients with lepromatous and 20 patients with tuberculoid leprosy and compared with 24 pulmonary tuberculosis patients, 25 systemic lupus erythematosus patients and 41 healthy blood donors. Some autoantibody specificities were extensively studied for the first time in mycobacterial infections. Striking immunoserological abnorm...

The presence of amyloid-related serum component, protein ASC, in serum samples from 63 leprosy patients was investigated. Protein ASC was detected in 38% of the patients. A correlation to the disease spectrum of leprosy was apparent: polar lepromatous cases, 64% positive; borderline lepromatous, 50%; borderline tuberculoid, 36%; subpolar tuberculoid, 17%; and polar tuberculoid, negative. Antibo...

Patients with lepromatous leprosy are unresponsive to lepromin skin-test material and possess defective lymphocyte function in vitro, including impaired mitogenesis in response to antigens of Mycobacterium leprae. It has been claimed that their macrophages cannot digest M. leprae in vitro; such a defect could explain both lepromin nonreactivity and impaired lymphocyte function on the basis of f...

The eyes may become involved in leprosy in three ways-as a complication of involvement of the facial and occasionally the trigeminal nerve(s); by invasion of the eyeball by large numbers of acid-fast bacilli in lepromatous leprosy; and by participation in the generalized allergic reaction, known as the reactive phase. It is curious that the eyeball is rarely, if ever, involved by direct spread ...

Leprosy presents as a clinical spectrum that is precisely paralleled by a spectrum of immunological reactivity. The disease provides a useful and accessible model, in this case in the skin, in which to study the dynamics of cellular immune responses to an infectious pathogen, including the role of adhesion molecules in those responses. In lesions characterized by strong delayed-type hypersensit...