Abstract

Mycobacterium leprae is the causative agent of leprosy known since ancient times, a chronic granulomatous infectious illness that mostly affects the skin and peripheral nerves. Leprosy's clinical symptoms vary and might resemble a number of different skin conditions. Therefore, histological analysis is crucial for early diagnosis and treatment. Materials and methods: This study is a hospital based cross-sectional study carried out in the Department of Pathology of Integral Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Hospital, Lucknow. The institutional ethical committee approved the study. From September 2020 to September 2021, skin biopsies from 66 patients who had leprosy lesions that were newly identified and untreated were included. Results: The results showed the distribution of patients according to demographic profile. It was seen that most of the patients were males (74.2%) between 31-40 years (39.3%) age group and 92.4% patients had no family history of leprosy. It was found that 53% patients had BT (borderline tuberculoid leprosy) followed by 21.2% who had LL (lepromatous leprosy) and the least patients (3%) had BB (mid-borderline) and IL (indeterminate lepromatous). Association of clinical type with age and gender was clinically insignificant. Conclusion: Clinico-histopathological correlation of leprosy cases plays a crucial role in early diagnosis and accurate case detection. Combining clinical parameters, slit smear analysis, histological features, and bacillary index can improve the diagnostic accuracy.

Description

.