title: Studies on risk of leprosy relapses in China: relapses after treatment with multidrug therapy.
abstract: Based upon the data from the Chinese National System for Leprosy Surveillance, this paper reports on the relapses in 47,276 leprosy patients cured by or released from WHO-recommended multidrug therapy (WHO/MDT). The overall relapse rate was 0.73/1000 patient-years (PY). There was a statistically significant difference in the relapse rates of WHO/MDT-MB (0.61/1000 PY) and WHO/MDT-PB (1.04/1000 PY) (chi 2 = 15.7, p < 0.01) patients. For multibacillary (MB) patients, the relapse rate in patients treated with fixed-duration MDT (0.56/1000 PY) was comparable with that in patients treated with MDT until skin-smear negativity (0.73/1000 PY) (chi 2 = 2.20, p > 0.05). Our present study suggests that fixed-duration MDT is a cost-effective regimen for the treatment of leprosy in China. The present results also show that relapse of leprosy is acceptably low and has not yet become a serious clinical or public health problem but, based upon the incubation of relapse in MDT patients, it is necessary to encourage annual follow up for at least 5 years for paucibacillary (PB) and 10 years for MB patients after being released from WHO/MDT.
authors.affiliation: Department for Leprosy Research, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Nanjing, China. epicams@jlonline.com
authors.forename: X S
authors.initials: XS
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: W Z
authors.initials: WZ
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: G Y
authors.initials: GY
authors.lastname: Ye
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D004359:Drug Therapy, Combination; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007917:Leprostatic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D007918:Leprosy / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D009313:National Health Programs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012008:Recurrence; D012307:Risk Factors; D014944:World Health Organization
chemical_list: D007917:Leprostatic Agents