Clinicopathologic correlation of different types of leprosy lesions

Abstract

Background: Leprosy is one of the major public health problems of the developing countries. The principle of reducing the load of infection in society, to break the chain of infection, is the cornerstone of leprosy control work today. Aim of the Study: To study clinicopathologic correlation of different types of leprosy lesions. Materials and Methods: The present study was conducted in the Department of Dermatology of the medical institute. The ethical clearance for the study was approved from the ethical committee of the hospital. A total of 90 leprosy skin biopsies were studied over a period of 12 months. All the biopsies were received in the Department of Pathology of the hospital. Cases were selected regardless of their age, sex, socio­economic status and occupation. Biopsies were fixed in 10% formalin and processed. 5 micron sections were stained with haematoxylin and eosin; modified Fite and studied. Results: There were 65 males and 25 females between 8 and 70 years of age. We observed that borderline tuberculoid leprosy was the most common cases in clinical and histopathological types, although more number of cases were seen in histopathological types of leprosy. We observed that the while correlating the histopathological diagnosis with clinical diagnosis, maximum correlation (75%) was noted in LL patients followed by BT (59%) and BB (50%). Conclusion: Within the limitations of the present study, it can be concluded that there is some degree of overlap between different types of leprosy, both clinically and histopathologically, correlation of clinical and histopathological features along with bacteriological index appears to be more useful for accurate typing of leprosy than considering any one of the single parameters alone.