Early diagnosis and treatment of leprosy in the United States.
Leprosy is a chronic disease of the skin and peripheral nerves that afflicts more than 5 million persons worldwide and more than 7,000 persons in the United States. Although leprosy is indigenous to the southern United States, most new cases in this country occur among immigrants from foreign areas where the disease is endemic. Leprosy presents as a skin rash and/or peripheral neuropathy. The diagnosis can be confirmed when acid-fast bacilli are found in skin biopsies or smears. The multiple-drug treatment regimens recommended by the World Health Organization have considerably reduced the length of treatment to six months to two years. The optimum duration of treatment has yet to be determined. In most countries, including the United States, leprosy remains one of the most stigmatizing diseases.
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St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006801:Humans; D007918:Leprosy / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000382:microbiology; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology