Some Potential Biochemical Markers of Leprosy | ||||
| Bulletin of Egyptian Society for Physiological Sciences | ||||
| Article 6, Volume 30, Issue 1, December 2010, Page 103-122 PDF (278.88 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/besps.2010.36167 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Authors | ||||
| Ghada Abdel Aleem* 1; Hoda Moneib2; Sahar Youssef2; Nahla Darwish2; Mona Abdel-Azem Mona Abdel-Azem3 | ||||
| 1Medical Biochemistry Department, Faculty of Medicine, Tanta University | ||||
| 2Dermatology & Venereology Dep; Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University | ||||
| 3Pathology Dep., Faculty of Medicine, Tanta University | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| Background: Leprosy is a chronic granulomatous infectious disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae. Leprosy "Type 1" reactions (T1R), reversal reactions, occur in 30–40% of borderline patients with cellular immune responses to M. leprae. "Type 2" reactions (T2R), also known as erythema nodosum leprosum (ENL), occur only in lepromatous (LL) and borderline lepromatous (BL) patients with a high bacterial load and little or no cellular immunity to M. leprae. Corticosteroids alleviate symptoms in T1R and T2R, but many patients have multiple, recurrent episodes. The Objective of the present study is to verify the validity of measuring chitotriosidase activity and neopterin level, products of activated macrophages, adenosine deaminase activity and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) as markers of leprosy and to detect their values in diagnosis of different types of leprosy. Methods: This study was conducted on 15 healthy subjects and 75 leprotic patients that were classified into 5 groups [tuberculoid leprosy (TT), borderline tuberculoid (BT), borderline borderline (BB), borderline lepromatous (BL), and lepromatous leprosy (LL)], each group formed of 15 patients, depending on clinical, bacteriological and histopathological pattern. Patients were further grouped with a BI≥2 as multibacillary (MB, n=45), whereas those with BI<2 were grouped as paucibacillary (PB, n=30). Thirty-four of the aforementioned patients were diagnosed with reactions of which 17 had type II/erythema nodosum leprosum (ENL) and 17 had type I/reversal reaction (RR). Reactions were treated using prednisolone for 12 weeks. Venous blood sample was collected from each subject and processed for estimation of the activity of chitotriosidase and adenosine deaminase, neopterin and MCP-1 levels. Results: both chitotriosidase activity and neopterin level were elevated in leprosy patients with significant elevation in MB than PB leprosy with significant lowering in the patients with reactional leprosy after prednisolone therapy. Adenosine deaminase activity was significantly elevated in TT, PB and reactional leprosy. MCP-1 was significantly elevated in LL, MB and ENL. Conclusion: chitotriosidase and neopterin could be considered as promising markers for differentiation of MB from PB patients and useful for determining the response of reactional leprosy to therapy. Adenosine deaminase could be useful in distinguishing TT, PB and reactional leprosy. MCP-1 could be considered a fair marker in LL, MB and ENL. In addition, these findings may provide new clues to the pathogenesis of leprosy reactions. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| multibacillary (MB); paucibacillary (PB); Non-reactional leprosy (NR); erythema nodosum leprosum (ENL); reactional leprosy (RL); reversal reaction (RR) and healthy controls (HC). Tubercloid Leprosy (TT); Leprometous Leprosy (LL); Bordreline Lepromatous (BL); Bordreline Tubercloid (BT); Bordreline Bordreline (BB) | ||||
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