The early serodiagnosis of Leprosy. I. The use of counterimmunoelectrophoresis and enzyme-linked immunosorbent

The diagnosis of leprosy is primarily done by clinical, bacteriological and histopathological studies but often the diagnosis is done when the disease is already established and even in some cases when nerve injury have occurred. Test for early serodiagnosis of leprosy are needed. This is a first report of a long term study in which the sera of 15 leprosy patients and 80 of their contacts were analized, this findings will be correlated with the clinical signs. The ideal serodiagnosis test for leprosy should use an especific antigen for M. leprae, however it does not exist any antigen totally accepted. In this work antibodies against mycobacterial antigens were searched using the counterimmunoelectrophoresis (CEI) technique, the antigens used were whole extracts from BCG, M. bovis, M. tuberculosis, M. leprae and M. lepraemurium. We also used an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) with BCG extract. With the CIE technique the patients gave a 60% of positiveness and their contacts a 28%. By the ELISA only 5% of the contacts had a positive test.