CLINICAL AND EPIDEMIOLOGICAL PROFILE OF PATIENTS WITH LEPROSY PATIENTS TREATED IN A REFERENCE CENTER OF SÃO LUIS - MA

INTRODUCTION: Leprosy is a chronic, infectious and contagious disease, of slow evolution, caused by Mycobacterium leprae. It has high effectiveness and low pathogenicity, manifesting itself mainly through dermatoneurological signs and symptoms. OBJECTIVE: To determine the clinical and epidemiological profile of leprosy patients seen at a Reference Center in the city of São Luís - MA. METHODS: This is a descriptive, quantitative, observational, retrospective study carried out in a specialized leprosy care service, comprising a sample of 90 patient records notified from January 2015 to December 2016 and who received discharge for cure. A descriptive analysis of the data was performed using the Epi Info 7.2 2017 software. RESULTS: There was a predominance of women (54.44%), with an average age of 40 years old, residents of the capital (83.31%), color brown skin (44.44%), employed (35.56%), complete high school (31.11%), single (16.67%). The year with the most leprosy diagnoses was 2016 (51.11%), per new case (62.22%), mainly performed by smear microscopy (77.78%), classified as multibacillary (83.33%) and dimorphic leprosy (60.00%). The therapeutic regimen of the majority was multibacillary multidrug therapy (82.22%). CONCLUSION: In view of the results found, it is clear that there was a late diagnosis in the sample, since the patients did not show a decrease in the affected segments at discharge. The problem of leprosy requires investments not only in actions that enable early diagnosis, treatment and cure, essential for the elimination of the disease, but also in continuing education with professionals, in order to provide effective care and monitoring of patients during treatment and after discharge for cure to prevent future disabilities.