Resumo

FRANCHESCHI, Danilo Santana Alessio; SACRAMENTO, Willian Sergio do; MAZINI, Priscila Saamara  e  VISENTAINER, Jeane Eliete Laguila. Leprosy on the Modern World. Arq Med [online]. 2009, vol.23, n.4, pp.159-165. ISSN 2183-2447.

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by the Mycobacterium leprae. While many infected individuals with the bacillus do not present symptoms, others manifest different clinical forms of the disease. In beginning, the undetermined form may manifest and evolutes to pole forms: Lepromatous Leprosy (LL) or Tuberculoid Leprosy (TL). LL represents the pole where the cellular immune response is deficient and the bacillary load is high, while TL is characterized by the best cellular immune response to and control of the bacillary load. One form with intermediate characteristics between the two poles may also occur: Borderline. There are many factors that influence the development of the disease and its evolution, among than, genetic factors of the host. The main of this revision is to present the most recent studies on host-genetic influences on leprosy immunopathogenesis.

Palavras-chave : leprosy; Mycobacterium leprae; hosts genetic.

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