01925nas a2200301   4500000000100000008004100001260001300042653001000055653003000065653002200095653001100117653002300128653001200151653002900163653001500192653001700207653003000224100001300254700001100267700001200278700001100290245009900301856004100400300001100441490000700452520115000459022001401609       1999                            d  c1999 Dec10aChina10aDrug Therapy, Combination10aFollow-Up Studies10aHumans10aLeprostatic Agents10aleprosy10aNational Health Programs10aRecurrence10aRisk Factors10aWorld Health Organization1 aChen X S1 aLi W Z1 aJiang C1 aYe G Y00aStudies on risk of leprosy relapses in China: relapses after treatment with multidrug therapy.  uhttp://ila.ilsl.br/pdfs/v67n4a02.pdf  a379-870 v673 a<p>Based upon the data from the Chinese National System for Leprosy Surveillance, this paper reports on the relapses in 47,276 leprosy patients cured by or released from WHO-recommended multidrug therapy (WHO/MDT). The overall relapse rate was 0.73/1000 patient-years (PY). There was a statistically significant difference in the relapse rates of WHO/MDT-MB (0.61/1000 PY) and WHO/MDT-PB (1.04/1000 PY) (chi 2 = 15.7, p < 0.01) patients. For multibacillary (MB) patients, the relapse rate in patients treated with fixed-duration MDT (0.56/1000 PY) was comparable with that in patients treated with MDT until skin-smear negativity (0.73/1000 PY) (chi 2 = 2.20, p > 0.05). Our present study suggests that fixed-duration MDT is a cost-effective regimen for the treatment of leprosy in China. The present results also show that relapse of leprosy is acceptably low and has not yet become a serious clinical or public health problem but, based upon the incubation of relapse in MDT patients, it is necessary to encourage annual follow up for at least 5 years for paucibacillary (PB) and 10 years for MB patients after being released from WHO/MDT.</p>  a0148-916X