Bull World Health Organ. 1970;43(6):879-90.
This paper discusses the evidence for and against the view that the spectrum of pathological changes in leprosy, extending from the lepromatous form to the tuberculoid form, may be caused by differences in the immune responses of patients. Patients with the tuberculoid form of leprosy generally have well-developed specific cell-mediated immunity, but in a large proportion of patients with lepromatous leprosy the specific cell-mediated immunity to Mycobacterium leprae and sometimes to other antigens seems to be deficient, whereas the circulating antibody response is well-developed. Techniques for assessing the immune response in patients are described in detail with the objective of improving the comparability of such investigations. The paper also discusses the importance of several investigatory approaches to clinical leprosy and the value of animal models for leprosy research.
麻风病从瘤型到结核样型的一系列病理变化光谱，可能是由患者免疫反应的差异引起的。结核样型麻风病患者通常具有发育良好的特异性细胞介导免疫，但在很大一部分瘤型麻风病患者中，对麻风分枝杆菌以及有时对其他抗原的特异性细胞介导免疫似乎存在缺陷，而循环抗体反应则发育良好。详细描述了评估患者免疫反应的技术，目的是提高此类研究的可比性。本文还讨论了几种临床麻风病研究方法的重要性以及麻风病研究动物模型的价值。
