The histology of the Mitsuda reaction and its significance

Abstract

The Lepromin test was done on 38 leprosy patients belonging to the various classifications of the disease. The 'delayed' or 'Mitsuda' reaction was assessed clinically and histologically at 21 days. The tuberculoid, borderline tuberculoid and all but one of the indeterminate patients showed a tu berculoid histology on Lepromin biopsy . The agreement between the histological reaction to Lepromin and the histopathology of the skin lesions was near complete in tuberculoid and borderline tuberculoid patients. In in determinate leprosy the tissue response to Lepromin gives a clear indi cation of the progress of the disease in that patient . The histology of Lepromin in the lepromatous and borderline lepromatous groups was non specific and demonstrated large numb ers of the injected bacilli. Further, in these patients minimal nodular reaction may be produced by a non-specific response of fibroblastic proliferation . In addition to the clinical reading, histologically evaluated Lep romin reaction is an important procedure to assess the immunological status of a leprosy patient.