Study on Relapse of MB Leprosy Patients Treated with 24
Months of MDT in the Southwest of China
The
duration of multidrug therapy for MB patients has been
changed several times£¬there still is a dispute on the
duration of MB patients especially in patients initially
with a high BI load. In order to investigate the late
relapse rate of MB leprosy patients treated with 24 months
of WHO/MB regimen, we carried out a relapse survey in
the southwest of P. R. China. A detailed questionnaire
was designed for collecting the data about the relapse
among the MB patients who completed above-mentioned regimen
from 1989 to 2000. The data from 2517 multi-bacillary
leprosy patients treated with that regimen were collected
in 16 counties of Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province,
8 counties of Qianxinan Prefecture, Guizhou Province,
2 counties of Zhangjiajie City and 1 county of Xiangxi
Autonomous Prefecture, Hunan Province. Among 2517 MB patients,
2374 were followed up for more than 4 years after completion
of MDT. During 15 years of follow up, about 235 patients
died or missed. The total duration of follow up was 23389
person¨Cyears and a mean duration was of 9.29 person-years
for each patient. There were 5 relapsed patients with
an accumulation relapse rate of 0.2% or 0.21/1000 person-years.
Five relapses had the initial BI of 5.0 in one patient,
3.0 to 3.5 in 3 patients and 1.83 in one patient. The
relapses occurred 48 to 104 months after the completion
of MDT. The relapse rate of MB patients treated with 24
months of WHO/MB regimen was very low after a long-term
follow-up. It is worth studying whether it might be or
not an overestimation that the patients with an initial
high BI have a high risk of relapse after two years of
MDT.
By Dr. Shen Jianping
