抄録
Fifty-eight leprosy patients were tested for serum lysozyme and circulating immune complexes (CIC). Serum lysozyme activities were measured by lyso-plate method and CIC were detected by Clq solid-phase radioimmunoassay using 125I labeled protein A.
The mean of serum lysozyme activity in lepromatous leprosy patients with ENL was significantly greater than that of healthy controls. The mean values were 30.6±17.0μg/ml for lepromatous patients with ENL, 12.5±5.2μg/ml for lepromatous patients without ENL, and 9.9±3.9μg/ml for tuberculoid patients.
There was found that serum lysozyme values were correlated with CIC values in sera of patients with lepromatous leprosy (r=0.63, p<0.01).
According to the serial observations of 3 lepromatous cases for about 6 months, it was found the serum lysozyme activities were increased just after the treatment with RFP and decreased by treatment with steroid or thalidomide. And the degrees of increasing or decreasing of serum lysozyme activities associated with drug therapies were larger than that of CIC. These results seemed to support that serum lysozyme may be a more useful parameter clinically than CIC for treatment and control of ENL reaction.
