Introduction: Leprosy is a crucial health problem in most of the developing countries of the world and it causes awful disfiguration, physical pain, hardship, leads to isolation, rejection and ostracization. Histopathological study of leprosy is very important in understanding the disease, it’s varied manifestation and complications. So clinicopathological correlation is extremely important in patient care and management inspite of considering a single parameter. This study was performed to see various histopathological features of different types of leprosy in skin biopsies and to correlate them with clinical presentation.

Materials and Methods: The study was carried out in Department of Pathology, S.M.S. Medical College, Jaipur (Rajasthan) from January 2017 to June 2018. Based on histopathological examination of Hematoxylin and Eosin stained sections and Fite-Faraco staining for identification of the lepra bacilli, total of 100 specimens of skin biopies were diagnosed.

Results: In the present study, maximum number of cases among clinically diagnosed cases belonged to BT 43 (43%) followed by BL 12 (12%), TT 9 (9%), LL 8 (8%), IL 7 (7%), BB 3 (3%). Most of the biopsies were of paucibacillary type (51%) and the rest (49%) were of multibacillary type. On histology, BT type was the commonest type of leprosy which constituted 31% cases followed by TT- 18% cases, LL- 18% cases, BL- 9 % cases, IL- 9 % cases, BB 3% cases and Histoid leprosy 3 (3%). High BI of 5+ to 6+ were noted in LL and HL type and low BI of 1+ to 2+ were observed in TT, BT and BB type. Majority of TT, BT and IL type were negative for lepra bacilli. The overall clinico-histopathological correlation was seen in 55.95% cases and a good concordance was seen in TT (77.77%) and LL (75%) followed by BT (65%). The least concordance was seen in BB.

Conclusion: Histological changes appear earlier than clinical features so biopsy is very useful in diagnosing reactions earlier so that complications can be prevented.

Keywords: Leprosy, Skin biopsy, Histopathology.

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