The World Health Organization advocates 2 leprosy treatment regimens on the basis of disease classification (as multibacillary or paucibacillary) by skin lesion count. This method, which, in the Philippines, results in a high prevalence (78%) of patients with multibacillary leprosy, was directly compared with classification using standard histopathological and microbiological criteria in 264 currently untreated patients with leprosy. Of those whose leprosy was classified as paucibacillary, 38%-51% of patients had multibacillary leprosy according to classic criteria and were thus at risk of undertreatment according to World Health Organization recommendations.
BT - Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America C1 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17366457?dopt=Abstract CN - PARDILLO 2007 DA - 2007 Apr 15 DO - 10.1086/512809 IS - 8 J2 - Clin. Infect. Dis. LA - eng N2 -The World Health Organization advocates 2 leprosy treatment regimens on the basis of disease classification (as multibacillary or paucibacillary) by skin lesion count. This method, which, in the Philippines, results in a high prevalence (78%) of patients with multibacillary leprosy, was directly compared with classification using standard histopathological and microbiological criteria in 264 currently untreated patients with leprosy. Of those whose leprosy was classified as paucibacillary, 38%-51% of patients had multibacillary leprosy according to classic criteria and were thus at risk of undertreatment according to World Health Organization recommendations.
PY - 2007 SP - 1096 EP - 9 T2 - Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America TI - Methods for the classification of leprosy for treatment purposes. UR - http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/44/8/1096.full.pdf VL - 44 SN - 1537-6591 ER -