Leprosy patients lack specific cellular immunity against Mycobacterium leprae, but other immunological functions are thought to be preserved. However, in a leprosy sanatorium in South Japan between 1982 and 2000, we found that the average age at death of cured lepromatous leprosy patients was about 5 yrs younger than that of cured tuberculoid patients; [male/lepromatous, 76.0 +/- 10.0 yrs old v...

The association between HLA specificities and leprosy was investigated in a southern Brazilian population. One hundred and twenty-one patients and 147 controls were typed for HLA-A, B, Cw, DR and DQ. Patients were subdivided into the following subgroups, according to clinical, histological and immunological criteria: lepromatous (N = 55), tuberculoid (N = 32), dimorphous (N = 20), and indetermi...

Exacerbation of the immune response against Mycobacterium leprae can lead to neuritis, which is commonly treated via immunosuppression with corticosteroids. Early neurolysis may be performed concurrently, especially in young patients with a risk of functional sequelae. We report the case of a young patient experienced intense pain in the left elbow one year after the treatment of tuberculoid-tu...

Background: Langerhans cells are important in the pathogenesis of leprosy.  A recent study reported that these cells were almost absent in the epidermis overlying lepromatous lesions. Objective: To investigate a possible relationship between the number of Langerhans cells and the histopathologic spectrum of lesions in patients with leprosy. Methods: An immunohistochemical staining for S100 prot...

Mycobacterium leprae-specific and polyclonal immunoglobulin G (IgG) subclass and IgE antibodies in leprosy patients across the histopathological spectrum were determined by using a quantitative enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Antibody responses to M. leprae sonicates were detected only in IgG1, -2, and -3 subclasses. Even at 100-times-lower dilutions, very little IgG4 and IgE antibody activi...

Most algorithms for learning and pattern discovery in data assume that all the needed data is available on one computer at a single site. This assumption does not hold in situations where a number of independent databases reside on geographically distributed nodes of a computer network. These databases cannot be moved to a single site due to size, security, privacy and data-ownership concerns b...

The generation of cell-mediated immunity against intracellular infection involves the production of IL-12, a critical cytokine required for the development of Th1 responses. The biologic activities of IL-12 are mediated through a specific, high affinity IL-12R composed of an IL-12Rbeta1/IL-12Rbeta2 heterodimer, with the IL-12Rbeta2 chain involved in signaling via Stat4. We investigated IL-12R e...

In a number of papers since 1952 Sagher and associa tes (18. 27. 29-35 ) have called attention to a specific tissue response of the noninvolved skin of lepromatous leprosy on intradermal injection with various agents. Tuberculin , leishmanin , milk, p eptone and living leishmanial leptomonads elicited a prelepromatous or lepromatous infiltration, usually without bacilli, at the site of the inje...