The number of Mycobacterium leprae in the pretreatment biopsy-specimen does not determine the rate of response of patients with lepromatous leprosy to chemotherapy with acedapsone

Abstract

In an attempt to explain wide patient-to-patient variation of the rate at which patients respond to chemotherapy with acedapsone, the relationship between the logarithm10 of the number of Mycobacterium leprae in the patient's pretreatment skin-biopsy specimen, and the rapidity with which the organisms became non-infective for mice, was examined for a number of patients with previously untreated lepromatous leprosy, treated in the course of a clinical trial in Cebu, Philippines. Analysis of the data failed to reveal such a relationship.