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Updated: Aug 10, 2026
Lymphocyte Isolation from Human Skin for Phenotypic Analysis and Ex Vivo Cell Culture
Published on: April 8, 2016
Histopathological study of apparently normal skin of patients with leprosy
Mohammad A El-Darouti1, Soliman Hussein, Salonaz A Marzouk
1Dermatology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt. mohammad_eldarouti@yahoo.com
Background:
Several clinical and laboratory observations point to the possible microscopical affection of normal-looking skin in leprosy.
Objective:
This study was carried out to verify the microscopical affection of apparently normal-looking skin in different types of leprosy.
Patients And Methods:
The study included 50 patients with different clinical types of leprosy. Biopsies from both skin lesions and normal-looking skin were obtained from each patient and examined for microscopical evidence of leprosy.
Results:
Microscopical affection of normal-looking skin was detected in 52% of our cases, with higher incidence of affection towards the lepromatous end of the disease.
Conclusion:
Our findings underscore that the incidence of microscopical affection of normal-looking skin in leprosy is much higher on the lepromatous end of the spectrum of leprosy than on the tuberculoid end; during treatment, the leprosy granulomas may disappear from the normal skin before the clinical lesions. Moreover, the microscopic picture of indeterminate leprosy can be observed in the normal-looking skin of patients with tuberculoid leprosy or lepromatous leprosy, and this description appears not to be confined to the entity known as indeterminate leprosy.
