In the month of January, 2006, India was declared to have eliminated leprosy. In an article by the Director General of Health Services, Government of India, the graphical representation of the progressively decreasing prevalence rate and new case detection rate for leprosy was quite encouraging and the goal of elimination by December, 2005 was supposed to be in sight. However, as dermatologists...

We report details of 2 patients who had been treated for a long time by dapsone monotherapy and who had remained smear negative for over 10 years, but were found to have relapsed with borderline-tuberculoid (BT) leprosy.

Serologic reactions in leprosy infection have not been studied with as much interest as other aspects of the infection, for various reasons. Inability to cultivate the causative agent in vitro has made preparation of even relatively purc antigens difficult. Positive serologic tes ts are not characterized by an absolute specificity for leprosy, in part because no antigen. specific f~r the lepros...

OBJECTIVE To analyse the leprosy epidemiological trends and the diagnostic delay in newly detected cases between 1990 and 2004 in Wuhan. METHODS We reviewed the clinical records of all 80 leprosy patients who were referred to the Wuhan Institute of Dermatology and Venerology (WHIDV) during 1990 and 2004, and the clinical information of diagnosis-delayed cases was analysed. RESULTS Patients ...

INTRODUCTION Renal involvement in leprosy has previously been described in the literature and can include amyloidosis, glomerulonephritis, nephrosclerosis, tubulointerstitial nephritis, and granulomas. AIM To evaluate renal involvement in Turkish patients with leprosy. MATERIAL AND METHODS In total, 32 patients with lepromatous leprosy but without any co-morbidities and 35 healthy control s...

A potential role for the CD1 family of lipid Ag-presenting molecules in antimicrobial immunity in vivo was investigated in human leprosy skin lesions. Strong induction of three CD1 proteins (CD1a, -b, and -c) was observed in dermal granulomas in biopsy samples of involved skin from patients with the tuberculoid form of leprosy or with reversal reactions, which represent clinical patterns of dis...

The clinical forms of leprosy constitute a spectrum that correlates closely with the degree of cell-mediated immunity. Patients with tuberculoid leprosy develop strong cell-mediated responses and have only a few, localized lesions, whereas patients with multibacillary lepromatous leprosy are specifically unresponsive to antigens of Myobacterium leprae. T cells of the CD4+ subset predominate in ...

Antigen and mitogen-induced gamma interferon (gamma-IFN) production was studied in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 34 leprosy patients. 17 of 18 lepromatous leprosy and borderline lepromatous patients (LL and BL) failed to release gamma-IFN in response to specific antigen (Mycobacterium leprae) and displayed reduced responses to mitogen (concanavalin A) stimulation. In contrast, cells f...

OBJECTIVE To examine the potential role of angiogenesis in leprosy. DESIGN Immunohistochemical analysis of leprosy lesions. SETTING Department of Dermatology, Venereology, and Leprology, Kasturba Medical College; Division of Dermatology, University of California at Los Angeles; and Departments of Dermatology and Pathology, Emory University. PATIENTS Thirty-two cutaneous lesions that repre...

A teased fibre technique was used to study 19 biopsies of the index finger branch of the radial cutaneous nerve of leprosy patients and contacts. These were compared with four normal nerves. Five nerves were from patients with preclinical nerve lesions, five from leprosy patients with minimal sensory nerve impairment, and five from contacts of lepromatous leprosy. The extent of demyelination in...