Leprosy, Two Cases of the Tuberculoid Form in Venezuela, and A Short Review

Leprosy is an ancestral disease mentioned in the Holy Bible in the Chapter of Leviticus, discovered its causal agent by the German Armauer Hansen in the year 1.873 being the Mycobacterium Leprae bacterium, which even with the great therapeutic advances in the last Century still persists in our world. From this disease classically (5) variants have been described, according to the immunity of the patient, defined by the World Health Organization: In 1.) Indeterminate, (Initial phase- (LI)), Tuberculoid (TT or paucibacillary), 2.) Borderline (BB), with two variants: 3.) Borderline Tuberculoid (BT, paucibacillary) and 4.) Borderline Lepromatous (BL, multibacillary), 5.) Lepromatous or diffuse (LL) (Multibacillary). Tuberculoid or Paucibacillary leprosy has a great characteristic has the great characteristic of being lesions that can occur in any part of the body even face, but more frequent in the limbs, often unique that usually affect the limbs, erythematous with a defined border, central atrophy, with loss of sensitivity, (anesthesia), the Mitsuda test is highly positive, 2 or 3 ++ Ulnar nerves, external sciatic-popliteal and branches of the superficial cervical plexus are infiltrated. The investigation of acid-fast bacilli in the lymph of the ears and in the nasal mucus is usually negative. The skin biopsy shows atrophy of the epidermal stratum with rectification of the dermal epidermal junction, and inflammatory infiltrate around the nervous fillets, and absence of epidermal appendages mainly hair follicles. The Mycobacterium Leprae may or may not be present in the biopsy in the Tuberculoid (TT) spectrum, and is usually present in the Tuberculoid Borderline (BT) spectrum.We describe two cases of Tuberculoid Leprosy, one of them borderline variant.