title: Studies on microbial aerobic flora of skin in leprosy patients.
abstract: This study reports the isolation and identification of aerobic organisms from biopsies/slit-skin smears/scrapings from 129 leprosy patients and 50 healthy controls. These include 56 paucibacillary (PB) and 73 multibacillary (MB) cases. Thirty-six isolates from the specimens from 21 patients and 15 healthy controls were grown. The non-mycobacterial isolates from clinically PB leprosy (TT/BT/I) patients were: (1) Gram-positive cocci: Staphylococcus aureus(1), Staphylococcus albus(1); (b) Gram-positive bacilli: Bacillus subtilis(1), Corynebacterium xerosis(1); (c) Gram-negative bacilli: Escherichia coli(1), Proteus mirabilis(2), Klebsiella pneumoniae(1) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa(1). The isolates from clinically MB leprosy (BB/BL/LL) patients were: (a) Gram-positive cocci: Micrococci(1), Staphylococcus aureus(1) and Staphylococcus albus(1); (b) Gram-positive bacilli: Corynebacterium xerosis(1); Corynebacterium hofmanni(1) and Bacillus cereus(1). (c) Gram-negative bacilli: Escherichia coli(2), Klebsiella pneumoniae(1) and Proteus mirabilis(2). The specimens from healthy controls yielded similar organisms. These were (a) Gram-positive cocci: Staphylococcus albus(2), Staphylococcus aureus(2) and Micrococci(2); (b) Gram-positive bacilli: Corynebacterium xerosis(1), Bacillus subtilis(2), Corynebacterium hofmanni(1) and Bacillus cereus(1); (c) Gram-negative bacilli: Escherichia coli(3), Proteus vulgaris(1) and Proteus mirabilis(1). While these results show no significant differences in the species types of non-mycobacterial aerobic organisms isolated from healthy skin and PB/MB types of leprosy, these isolates need to be characterized by immunological/molecular methods to find out subtypes if any.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Central JALMA Institute for Leprosy (ICMR), Taj Ganj, Agra.
authors.forename: R K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Katoch
authors.forename: V D
authors.initials: VD
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.forename: C T
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Shivannavar
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Natarajan
authors.forename: V M
authors.initials: VM
authors.lastname: Katoch
mesh_terms: D001420:Bacteria, Aerobic / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D001706:Biopsy; D006801:Humans; D007918:Leprosy / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000473:pathology; D009161:Mycobacterium / Q000302:isolation & purification; D012867:Skin / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000473:pathology