01856nas a2200253   4500000000100000008004100001260000900042653001000051653002900061653001100090653001100101653001200112653000900124653001300133653002700146653001700173100001100190245010000201856008300301300001100384490000700395520118600402022001401588       1955                            d  c195510aEgypt10aFalse Positive Reactions10aFemale10aHumans10aleprosy10aMale10aSyphilis10aSyphilis Serodiagnosis10aTuberculosis1 aRUGE H00aSerological findings in leprosy and tuberculosis with the Wassermann, Meinicke, and VDRL tests.  uhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2538080/pdf/bullwho00544-0119.pdf  a861-860 v133 a<p>In the course of a venereal disease survey in Egypt, 820 cases of leprosy and 720 cases of tuberculosis were serologically examined with the Wassermann, Meinicke (MKR II), and VDRL tests; the results are reported in this paper.On serological and anamnestic evidence, 31 cases of syphilis were discovered among the leprosy cases and 37 among the tuberculosis cases. Apparently false positive reactions were seen in 203 cases of leprosy (25%) and in 38 cases of tuberculosis (5%). The author discusses the probability that a fairly high proportion of these reactions were in fact caused by otherwise undetected syphilis or were non-specific.The Meinicke test proved the most specific of the three, followed, in that order, by the Wassermann and the VDRL tests.It was found that syphilis was more frequent among males with tuberculosis than among those with leprosy; this is attributed to the fact that leprosy patients are kept in greater isolation. Less easily explicable is the fact that more females than males with leprosy were found to have syphilis, whereas in tuberculous persons the difference in syphilis incidence between male and female patients was not very great.</p>  a0042-9686