Evaluation of the social,clinical and laboratorial profile of patients diagnosed with leprosy in a reference center in São Paulo

Background: leprosy is the main infectious cause of disability. it is said to be eradicated in são paulo since 2005,but diagnosis is still late. objectives: to investigate the social,clinical and laboratorial profile of leprosy patients diagnosed between 01/2007 and 12/2011,in a reference center in são paulo. methods: retrospective descriptive study. data of all new leprosy cases diagnosed between 01/2007 and 12/2011 were raised in são paulo. results: 103 men and 71 women were diagnosed,most of them were multibacillary. mean age at diagnosis was 49 yrs; 2,2% were children; 70% had incomplete primary education; 50% were referred without diagnostic suspicion of leprosy. mean time since first symptoms/signs and diagnosis was 2 years; 64% of patients had some degree of disability,and 26% had grade 2. 23 cases were diagnosed only after being summoned,and 80% of these had no disability. agreement between the ridley and jopling and the who classification was 75% (kappa index = 0.44). serology for igm anti-pgl1 (87 patients) showed a mean value of 0.25,and an association between mb classification and test positivity (p <0.001). conclusions: leprosy diagnosis in são paulo is late. the disease mainly affected the socially disadvantaged and economically active population. failure to detect the disease (41% in the last 10 years) could be due to the lack of suspicion and to decentralization. for the classification of patients with advanced leprosy,both the who and r&j classifications proved to be helpful tools. © 2015 by anais brasileiros de dermatologia.