Leprosy is a chronic infectious and contagious disease, affecting mainly skin and peripheral nerves, interrupted by outbreaks reaction, classified as Type I or reverse reaction and the reaction type II or erythema nodosum leprosum, usually accompanied by neuritis.Thalidomide and prednisone are widely used in treat ENL, but are not always fully effective, it needs to be investigate other immunosuppressive drugs to control the reaction. The phenomenon of apoptosis of inflammatory cells occurs in leprosy and ENL, but few studies correlating the phenomenon with clinical improvement or worsening of the ENL reaction are available. This report describes the occurrence of apoptosis of inflammatory cells and clinical progression of erythema nodosum leprosum before, during and after the use of azathioprine to treat ENL. The results obtained with 07 patients enrolled in the study indicate that the drug, azathioprine, is effective in treating cases of ENL difficult to treat. This drug may induce remission of ENL, as well as to further decrease the dose of prednisone in use.The phenomenon of apoptosis could be documented using the immunogold with caspase 3 in all cases. There was no significant variation seen between the number of cells highlighted with caspase 3 before and after treatment with azatioprina.No significant correlation between the number of cells highlighted with caspase 3 before and after treatment with azathioprine and clinical improvement shown could be demonstrated.
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