Hepatitis B virus infection in lepromatous and tuberculoid patients from Senegal.

Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) seric markers (HBs Ag, anti-HBs, and HBe Ag) were studied in 987 Senegalese leprosy patients (lepromatous: LL; tuberculoid: TT) in comparison with 6187 healthy adults (controls). Two populations of leprosy patients from ILAD (Institut de Léprologie Appliquée de Dakar) were studied: The First study (i.e.

[Clinical and bacteriological assessment 8 years after triple-drug therapy for multibacillary leprosy in Senegal].

Increasing resistance to dapsone (DDS) leads to recommend triple drug chemotherapy (TCT) in multibacillary leprosy (ML). To determinate long term evolution, we evaluated patients who received TCT 8 years ago. Between 1974 and 1976, 30 patients with ML received TCT (rifampicin, prothionamid, and DDS) during 6 or 12 months.

[Leprosy and hepatitis B].

In 1966, B. S. Blumberg, investigating for carriers of the "Australia" antigen which he had discovered two years before, finds that the percentage is significantly more elevated in a group of leprous patients than in controls.

[Osteoarticular lesions in leprosy (experience 1960-1982)].

Bone changes are frequent in leprosy involving small distal bones of the limbs and, in advanced cases, some cranial bones. The various kinds of osteitis and their radiologic features are described as well as the arthritis to which they can give way. These changes may result directly from the infection by M.

[Surgical decompression of neuritis of Hansen's disease].

The recent progress were focused on: the identification of the general immunological mechanism of the hansenian neuritis, demonstrated by endoneural biopsies; the different pathology of the two categories of neuritis; the pathophysiologic derangements, inducing hypoxia or anoxia in the truncular involved segment. The adjuvant role of the canals is important; the clinical differences of the two categories of neuritis and the cases we shall treat by emergency; the importance of antireactionnal treatment and of the notation by tests for the study of the results. The goals are the hemodynamic decompression, useful in the first stage of ENL neuritis, the mechanical decompression of neural fasciculus and the urgent exeresis of necroses or evacuation of febrile abscess.

Once-monthly rifampicin plus daily dapsone in initial treatment of lepromatous leprosy.

In an international multicentre controlled single-blind trial of 93 previously untreated lepromatous leprosy patients the therapeutic effects of adding rifampicin, 450 mg/day orally or 1,200 mg once monthly in a single oral dose, to dapsone (50 mg/day orally) for the first 6 months of treatment were compared. Clinical and histopathological improvements and bacteriological regression, indicated by the decreases in the bacterial and morphological indices of the skin and nose-blow smears, were satisfactory and practically identical after 6 months' treatment. The once-monthly rifampicin schedule was better tolerated than the daily one.

[Immune complexes and complement in leprosy (author's transl)].

The sera of 87 Senegalese patients with various forms of leprosy were investigated. Two of the most reliable methods were used to detect circulating immune complexes : the radiolabelled C1q binding test and the Raji cell binding technique. Several fractions of complement, including C3, C4, factor B and the C3d product of C3 were also assayed.