Abstract
Early and late reactions to Mitsuda's antigen and early reactions to Dharmendra's antigen were studied in 718 cases of the lepromatous type and 181 cases of the non-lepromatous type of leprosy. The symptoms in which the reaction and the type do not agree were observed and the the clinical course with sulfone treatment in these patients was followed.
1) Early reaction-The cases of the lepromatous type, positive to Mitsuda antigen (5.3%) were for the most part subsided cases but those positive to the Dhamendra's antigen (7.8%) still showed residual dermal eruptions and a large number were still bacteriologically positive whereas 15.7% of the non-lepromatous type were negative or indefinite to the Mitsuda antigen and 10.5% to the Dharmendra antigen and all were bacteriologically negative with depigmented maculae or residual maculae being present in about 1/2 of the cases.
2) Late reaction-Evaluation according to the current criterion of considering a size of greater than 3mm as positive, showed that the late Mitsuda reaction was positive in 88.3% of the lepromatous type and dermal eruptions were present and bacteria positive in more than one-half of the positive cases with only a small number of subsided cases. All of the non-lepromatous type gave a positive late reaction. If however, a size of more than 7mm is considered positive, as proposed by the author, there were 15.2% positives in the lepromatous type and though the positive cases were not limited to those in which the dermal eruptions were completely absorbed, the majority were cases in the subsided stage. The finding that 13.3% of the non-lepromatous type were negative coincides well with the clinical observations.
3) No significant relationship was found between the size of reaction and the duration or dosage of sulfone therapy.
