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Biopsy Diagnosis of Peripheral Neuropathy pp 225–243Cite as

Leprous Neuropathy

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Abstract

Leprosy is the most common cause of neuropathy in the underdeveloped world. Notwithstanding a spectacular decrease in global prevalence since 1982, leprosy consistently remains a public health problem in 32 countries, mostly in Africa, Asia, and South America. The detection rate (figures from 2010) for leprosy is about 250,000 new cases being registered each year. The rare cases originating in North America are confined to certain regions in Louisiana, Texas, California, and Hawaii. With present immigration patterns in North America, clinicians can expect to see more patients with this disease, with the Philippines, Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos), South America, and the Caribbean being the particularly high-risk regions of origin. In North America secondarily transmitted cases are exceedingly rare. Exceptionally, the disease is identified in patients who seem to have no reason to be so afflicted. In the St. Michael’s Hospital nerve biopsy experience, leprosy has been the fifth most common specific diagnosis, with the patients all emigrating from endemic areas in Southeast Asia or India.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sunnybrook and St Michael’s Hospitals, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Juan M. Bilbao MD, FRCP (C) (Professor Emeritus of Neuropathology)

  2. Division of Neuropathology Department of Pathology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Robert E. Schmidt MD, PhD (Professor of Pathology and Immunology Director)

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  1. Juan M. Bilbao MD, FRCP (C)
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  2. Robert E. Schmidt MD, PhD
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Bilbao, J.M., Schmidt, R.E. (2015). Leprous Neuropathy. In: Biopsy Diagnosis of Peripheral Neuropathy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07311-8_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07311-8_12

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