Jessica Fuentes

What is Leprosy? Leprosy is a disease that affects skin, causing lumps. You may
recognize the disease as mentioned in the Bible. It has been around since ancient times. Areas at
high risk with this disease is in India, China, Egypt, and other areas. It is caused by a slow
growing bacterium called Mycobacterium leprae. Its not contagious as thought it would be. It is
spread by skin to skin contact. This disease can lead to bumps in the skin, as well as muscle
weakness. We will talk about the importance of testing, comparison of different tests, and the
results of leprae. The highest rates of detection were ELISA, which detected antiND-O-BSA
IgM in 48 of 49 (97.96%)MB patients, followed by nested PCR, which detected 47 of 49
(95.92%) MB patients, but there were no statistically significant differences between the two
methods (P > 0.05) (Ann J Trop, 2013, pg. 3).
Ill explain how this test became more detected with ELISA, but first lets talk about how
they got their results. First, we evaluated a group of leprosy patients from their whole blood.
These patients were 49 multibacillary (MB), 30 paucibacillary (PB), 96 household contacts
(HHCs), 18 tuberculosis (TB), and 35 normal healthy individuals. Blood was extracted and
purified from these patients and scientists performed their diagnosis on the nested PCR. The rates
of detection were 97.96% from ELISA in MB patients followed by 95.92% by the nested-PCR
assay (a 2.04% difference). However, making a small change to the ELISA anti-LID-1 changed
the detection of MB patients and decreased the chance of M. leprae in ELISA. In this case, the
PCR has a greater chance of M. leprae and ELISA has a lower change of M. leprae. Out of the
two tests we evaluated for PCR there were 6 HHCs that came negative on the first test, but on the
positive on the second test. It is known that HHCs of leprosy patients may have antiPGL-I
antibodies and never develop the disease. (Ann J Trop, 2013, pg. 4)

Jessica Fuentes
A very important particle that we should notice before getting so far on the test is to make
sure the blood sample is not contaminated with bacteria. This is crucial in finding M. leprae in
the blood. With advanced technology, we can improve detection of M. leprae by PCR (Ann J
Trop, 2013, pg. 4). Greater improvements of detection are if we test the samples multiple times.
The nested PCR increased than in previous studies and detected M. leprosy DNA. When samples
came negative from M. leprae, PCR was not inserted. The nested PCR in this study was more
accurate and not only did they find M. leprae, but they were also able to detect bacteria in
infected tissues.
ELISA also increased in detection for MB patients, related to nested PCR results. ELISA
was slightly higher than found in the nested PCR, which is comparable to the very first test we
examined that was a 2.04% difference. Both ELISA and nested PCR increased for PB patients.
Leprosy is long lasting, ergo early diagnosis and treatment. Tests with positive leprosy tend for
checkups for the HHCs. Nested PCR and ELISA are tested to detect the disease and confirming
diagnosis and well as detecting other conditions the patient might have. Detecting leprosy
bacillus DNA in the blood of HHCs early in stage is important because they tent to develop the
disease. A way to detect the disease early is by using nasal swab samples. In this study, there
were 110 MB and 72 PB patients were tested by M-PCR. Patients can detect to PCR-positive
nasal swabs, indicating that they dont have the infection, but they do have the M. leprae DNA.
The patients can carry this infection in their blood, but they wont develop the disease until later
in the future, unless they treat it early in the process.
More studies are needed to test nested-PCR and ELISA to detect early signs of the
infection in more patients.