Application of clinical and histopathological classification of leprosy.

A simultaneous clinical and histological study in 82 new, untreated leprosy patients was undertaken using the criteria of Ridley and Jopling. The disparity between the clinical and the histological diagnosis was abundantly clear, because in only 35 patients the two conformed with each other while in others there was a shift of one step towards either the tuberculoid or the lepromatous end of the spectrum. In 18 patients from other groups of leprosy, histologic delineation had features of indeterminate leprosy.