A study of histopathological spectrum of leprosy at tertiary care hospital

Leprosy is one of the oldest and chronic infectious diseases known to human being caused by Mycobacterium leprae. Leprosy has been declared eliminated (prevalence rate<1/10,000. population) as an important public health problem in our country on January 1, 2006, still cases are being reported with varying prevalence throughout many areas in India. Role of histopathological study in clinical suspicious cases are very important and definite diagnosis aids to reach confirmatory diagnosis and its subtypes, prognosis, an assessment or regression of the disease in patients. The present research was taken to evaluate the importance of skin biopsy as important diagnostic and spectrum defining tool. To evaluate the importance of skin biopsy in detecting and diagnosing and subtyping of leprosy. This was hospital based retrospective and prospective study of 113 clinically diagnosed cases of leprosy. Skin biopsies were received, processed and stained by H & E stain followed by Fite-faraco method to classify histopathological types of leprosy. A total 113 cases were studied out of them 73.45% were male and 26.54% were female. Majority of them 32% belonged to 21 -30 years age group. Lepromatous leprosy was noted maximum in 35.39% cases. Histopathology plays an important role in making definite diagnosis of leprosy.