Kadar serotonin serum yang rendah merupakan faktor risiko terjadinya eritema nodusum leprosum

Background: Type 2 reactions or erythema nodosum leprosum is one of the serious complications of morbus hansen that occurs in patients with poor cellular immunity to Mycobacterium leprae. There are several factors considered to cause ENL such as lepromatous leprosy, patients who have received antileprosy treatment, bacterial index of more than +4, other infections such as Streptococcus, age less than 40 years, pregnancy, trauma or surgery, physical and mental stress. Physical and mental stress. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that can decrease in a state of mental stress. This study aims to prove that low serum serotonin levels are a risk factor for erythema nodosum leprosum in morbus hansen patients.

Method: This study was a case control study conducted at the Dermatovenereology Polyclinic of Sanglah Hospital Denpasar which involved 25 subjects of erythema nodosum leprosum and 25 subjects not erythema nodosum leprosum that fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria, performed venous blood sampling as material examination serotonin serum level with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS version 21.0 with Pearson Chi Square test to obtain Odds Ratio.

Results: This study showed that serum serotonin levels in the case group were significantly lower than the control group (p<0.05). Odds ratio for serum serotonin was 12.67 (95% CI=3.308-48.504; p<0.001).

Conclusion: In this study it can be concluded that low serum serotonin levels are risk factors for erythema nodosum leprosum.