Open AccessHigher incidence of viableMycobacterium lepraewithin the nerve as compared to skin among multibacillary leprosy patients released from multidrug therapy
Author(s) -
Shetty Vp,
K Suchitra,
Uplekar Mw,
Antia Nh
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
leprosy review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 43
eISSN - 2162-8807
pISSN - 0305-7518
DOI - 10.5935/0305-7518.19970018
Subject(s) - medicine , mycobacterium leprae , leprosy , incidence (geometry) , dermatology , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , physics , optics
As identified by a significant growth in the footpads of immunosuppressed mice, the incidence of viable bacteria in a group of 26 multibacillary (BL-LL) patients released from multidrug (MDT) treatment was found to be two times more in the nerves (46%) as compared to skin (23%). Evidently there was a positive correlation between the overall bacterial load and the incidence of viable organisms. Bacterial growth was also observed in two out of five cases where neither the skin nor the nerve homogenate had shown any presence of acid-fast bacilli. Histopathology of biopsies, skin as well as nerve, including those having viable bacteria did not show any features of active disease.