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CASE REPORT article

Front. Immunol.
Sec. Autoimmune and Autoinflammatory Disorders : Autoimmune Disorders
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1430213

Leprosy misdiagnosed as an autoimmune disease: a case report

Provisionally accepted
Yihan Zhao Yihan Zhao Tong Wu Tong Wu *
  • Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences and Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, Sichuan, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is a curable, chronic contact infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae. It mainly affects human skin and nerves and can cause progressive and permanent damage to the skin, nerves, limbs, eyes and thus, is of great concern to the medical community. As the World Health Organization declared the disease to be "eradicated" in 2000, doctors have ignored the diagnosis of leprosy. A 35-year-old Han Chinese female patient presented to our hospital with 11 years of recurrent erythema and pain in the limbs and face, which was aggravated by fever for 6 days. The patient had an 11-year history of systemic lupus erythematosus. Initially, lupus was considered to be active and was subsequently treated with methylprednisolone; however, the rash was not controlled and the symptoms recurred. Further examinations confirmed a diagnosis of leprosy. Systemic lupus erythematosus complicated with leprosy is rare. This report suggests that physicians should emphasize a diagnosis of leprosy to reduce the rates of misdiagnosis and mistreatment.

    Keywords: Leprosy, Hansen's disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, Skin damage, Nerve damage

    Received: 09 May 2024; Accepted: 25 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zhao and Wu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Tong Wu, Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences and Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, Sichuan, China

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