Incidence of cancer in patients with leprosy.

Individuals with congenital immunodeficiences and patients who are immunosuppressed for maintenance of organ allografts experience a marked increase in the occurrence of malignancy. Patients with lepromatous leprosy also have depressed cellular immunity, but or study of 195 autopsied subjects with leprosy did not reveal an increase in the occurrence of cancer. Thirty-three of the 195 subjects with leprosy or 16.9% died of cancer, which is comparable to an age-matched group of individuals.