Active clinical trials for "Leprosy"

To date, there has been no clinical investigation on the effects of virgin coconut oil (VCO) oral supplementation on patients with Hansen's disease (HD) undergoing medical treatment. This study aims to examine the possible protective effect of exogenous supplementation of VCO on the oxidative stress, antioxidant status, and treatment response among HD patients. Treatment response will be defined as the clinical changes in cutaneous and neurologic manifestations as measured by the clinical response score. This study also aims to investigate the potential of VCO as an adjunct to Multi-Drug Therapy (MDT) in mitigating lepra reactions.

Team-based learning (TBL) is a learner-centered, instructor-directed strategy for small group active learning in large group educational settings. When TBL is conducted correctly, the students' performances are equivalent or improved in comparison to either lecture-based formats or more traditional small group learning models.1 Nevertheless, few studies have been published regarding the insertion of innovative audiovisual tools in the TBL context. The Virtual Human Project is described as powerful sequences of three dimension (3D) computer graphics video of the human body that aids learning by facilitating an understanding in relation to a specific subject. The Virtual Human is composed by video sequences combining anatomy, physiology, and morphology in the context of various diseases. There are video sequences available for many disciplines, including dermatology and with capacity to produce anatomical structures by 3D printer. Despite the incredible potential applications of the Virtual Human, few studies have assessed its impact on medical education. The investigators did not find any study evaluating TBL with the insertion of iconographic educational material that assessed whether this intervention could change the learning progress of students. This is the aim of the present study, by comparing students tests scores after a TBL session with the VIrtual Human videos about leprosy or a standard TBL session, and to evaluate the student's satisfaction with the Virtual Human videos.

The purpose of the study is to see if new methods can be used to determine why Multidrug Therapy (MDT), used to cure leprosy patients effectively for twenty years, is not as effective against Leprosy in the Philippines. Researchers do not know how people get infected with leprosy or what causes the disease to relapse after cure with adequate MDT. Blood, skin scrapings, nasal swabs and biopsies, will be collected from leprosy patients to perform tests related to the detection of the disease and the germ. The tests will be used to find out if the bacteria in the body are related to the bacteria found in other patients or contacts. This will help the researchers to know where these bacteria come from, and to see how they spread. Other tests will be performed to see if the bacteria can be killed by two common medicines given to leprosy patients. Study participants will include individuals age 18 and older presenting to Leonard Wood Memorial for the diagnosis and/or relapse of leprosy.

Clofazimine has shown effectiveness in the treatment of leprosy for many years. The World Health Organization and the National Hansen's Disease Program consider clofazamine to be standard therapy for treatment of multibacillary leprosy. In recent years, the availability of the drug has become limited and is currently available only under a research protocol and is considered "investigational." Use of Clofazamine in patients presenting with lepromatous leprosy is necessary for patients exhibiting nerve involvement or lesions resistant to other therapies. This drug will be used prospectively for patients who require treatment of leprosy as deemed appropriate by a Kaiser Permanente Southern California physician.

The purpose of this study is to determine what factors contribute to the continued incidence of leprosy in Colombia. Study participants will include volunteering and consenting individuals, older than 4 years of age, representing three study groups: healthy persons with no known contact with leprosy patients patients reporting at Instituto Colombiano de Medicina Tropical-CES and Impresa Social del Estado Sanatorio Agua de Dios with a new diagnosis of leprosy or relapse of leprosy household contacts of leprosy patients described in group 2. Blood, nasal swabs, slit skin smears, and biopsies will be taken from the volunteers to learn the strains of leprosy-causing bacteria in the area, the immune responses (body's response to disease) in local residents against the bacteria, and the pattern of leprosy transmission. Individuals will participate in this study for 1-10 days, and the study will last for 3 years.

Despite decades of a solid leprosy control program, including active case finding and follow-up on therapeutic outcome, the Comoros islands of Anjouan and Moheli continue to be hyperendemic for leprosy, with leprosy case notifications far exceeding those for tuberculosis, while the third island, Grande Comore, presents few cases. The high proportion (31% in 2015) of disease in children indicates that recent transmission is a major driver of the persistent endemicity, and that present control measures are not sufficient. The low proportion (2.6% average in last 10 years) of grade II disabilities in newly diagnosed cases indicates that case detection is early. The main objective of the present proposal is to identify which persons would most benefit from prophylactic treatment. The secondary objective is to unravel human, bacterial and environmental risk factors for transmission of and progression to leprosy disease, with the ultimate goal to reduce the leprosy incidence.. The program has remaining expertise to re-establish laboratory confirmation of leprosy patients, allowing to optimize and validate molecular genotyping techniques to complement conventional epidemiological investigations in a 3-year prospective cohort of leprosy patients and their close contacts, aiming to identify transmission links. A third objective is to document diagnostic delays in more detail As the leprosy control programme has initiated a pilot study on rifampicin prophylaxis in four villages on Anjouan in 2015, a prospective cohort study will permit measuring the leprosy incidence in close contacts as well as those in neighboring houses, who did or did not receive rifampicin prophylaxis. The expected outcome of this project will be to identify risk factors for leprosy transmission. Specifically, we expect to identify those contacts at highest risk of developing leprosy disease, who would most benefit from rifampicin prophylaxis or other preventive measures.

The purpose of this study is to treat with traditional Chinese medicine mouthwash, and through the research of dental plaque detection and xerostomia questionnaire and traditional Chinese medicine treatment mechanism.

Appropriate targeting of interventions for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that require innovative and intensified disease management (IDM) requires accurate data on the distribution of these diseases within endemic countries. In most instances however, existing case register data generated through national health management information systems or during programmatic activities do not provide an accurate representation of the true burden of IDM NTDs. This study will pilot a cluster randomized screening and confirmation survey to estimate the burden of IDM NTDs characterised by skin conditions associated with long-term disfigurement and disability. These include: leprosy, Buruli ulcer, yaws and lymphoedema and hydrocele resulting from lymphatic filariasis. The survey is being conducted in one county in Liberia. The protocol involves community-level screening by community health volunteers trained to use photo-based visual aids to recognise changes in the skin that broadly indicates patent infection. All suspected cases will be verified in their homes by local and national experts trained in the diagnosis of skin-presenting NTDs. The survey will generate accurate district-level prevalence estimates of leprosy, yaws, Buruli ulcer and lymphatic filariasis-associated lymphoedema and hydrocele and quantify the total costs and cost per case detected. In addition, results from this protocol will be compared with routinely collected case register data, to better understand how health system records reflect the true disease situation on the ground and quantify unmet need.