Leprosy, or Morbus Hansen, is a chronic granulomatous disease caused by
The purpose of the study is to describe the epidemiology of leprosy reactions at Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) teaching hospitals and provide a description of factors associated with the reactions that might provide valuable information for future studies.
This is a cross-sectional analytic study with total sampling on medical records of patients in the Dermatology and Venereology Polyclinic at H. Adam Malik Hospital Medan and USU Education Hospital in 2017–2021.
The incidence of leprosy reactions at the USU Medical Faculty Education Hospital in 2017–2021 was 41 cases. The majority of reaction types were type 2 reactions (68.3%). Risk factors for type 1 reactions were a history of reactions, being elderly, multiple lesions or nerve involvement, and co-infections, whereas the risk factors for type 2 reactions were LL, younger age, bacterial index >4+, stress, and co-infections. The highest age group proportion was 18–59 years (95.1%) and was more common in men (70.7%), which mostly appeared before treatment (39.1%). The incidence of leprosy reactions was 26 new cases per 100 patients.
The highest proportion of leprosy reactions was type 2, within the adult age group (18–59 years), males, and before treatment.