Many leprosy patients treated with multidrug therapy (MDT) had previously received dapsone (DDS) monotherapy for many years. We report here 2 such patients treated with modified paucibacillary MDT composed of rifampicin and DDS who subsequently relapsed with multibacillary leprosy 5 and 6 years after release from treatment. Isolates of Mycobacterium leprae from both patients were resistant to DDS but sensitive to rifampicin, suggesting that the relapses were caused by rifampicin sensitive 'persister' organisms. The implications of this for surveillance of patients released from treatment (RFT) and the management of relapsed patients is discussed.
BT - Leprosy review C1 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7500815?dopt=Abstract CN - Infolep Library - available DA - 1995 Sep DO - 10.5935/0305-7518.19950022 IS - 3 J2 - Lepr Rev LA - eng N2 -Many leprosy patients treated with multidrug therapy (MDT) had previously received dapsone (DDS) monotherapy for many years. We report here 2 such patients treated with modified paucibacillary MDT composed of rifampicin and DDS who subsequently relapsed with multibacillary leprosy 5 and 6 years after release from treatment. Isolates of Mycobacterium leprae from both patients were resistant to DDS but sensitive to rifampicin, suggesting that the relapses were caused by rifampicin sensitive 'persister' organisms. The implications of this for surveillance of patients released from treatment (RFT) and the management of relapsed patients is discussed.
PY - 1995 SP - 210 EP - 3 T2 - Leprosy review TI - Relapse with multibacillary leprosy caused by rifampicin sensitive organisms following paucibacillary multidrug therapy. UR - http://leprev.ilsl.br/pdfs/1995/v66n3/pdf/v66n3a03.pdf VL - 66 SN - 0305-7518 ER -