Clinical Observation of Leprosy Patients Discovered at OPD (1969 - 1978).

Epdemiological studies were done on 721 patients detected and confirmed as leprosy patients at the Department of Dermatology at Chonnam University Hospitai in the ten years period from l969 to 1978. Statistically, 491 cases were male and 230 cases were female, comprising 2. 1% of the total number of outpatients (34, 631) and showing a decreasing yearly tendency, The percentage of each group, or type; tuberculoid, borderline, lepromatous and indeterminate, was 53.8%, 9.6%, 31.2%, and 5.4%, respectively. The most common age at discovery for males was 30 39 and for female 20~29 with the largest group being adults aged 20~49, 482 cases (66.9%). The sex ratio was 2.1: l, male to female. However, for the tuberculoid types the ratio was 2.5: 1 which was higher than that of the lepromatous type, I. 7: 1, By disease type the most common age group was 20 29 for tubercekid type, 30 39 for lepromatous and borderline group and 10~19 for the indeterminated group. Geographically, 652 cases(90. 4%) were from Chonnam Province and 61 cases (8.5%) from Chonbuk Province. We also observed some significant sequential changes of the type of disease descovered even though 10 years is a relatively short period. There was a tendency towards decreased detection of the tuberculoid type and increased detection of the borderline an.d indeterminate group.