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F Cottenot

Publications and source records attributed to F Cottenot.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

[Epidemiology of endemic leprosy in the People's Republic of the Congo. Risk factors and markers].

A national prevalence survey of leprosy was made in june 1989 in Popular Republic of Congo: authors report results. The prevalence rate is 5.8% +/- 2.6% among people more than 15 years of age, and 10.5% of all forms are multibacillary. All patients are under DDS monotherapy. One overwhelming risk factor is leprosy antecedents in the family history; active case-finding and surveillance of contacts are recommended.

Adolescent↗

[Sampling surveys: an objective method of evaluating the prevalence of leprosy in an endemic zone].

The authors submit a simplified sample survey methodology designed to evaluate prevalence rates of leprosy. The system proposed uses a cluster sampling technique. A cluster is a randomly selected group of households. In each household visited by the epidemiological teams all the inhabitants of the target-group are interviewed and examined. Various samples sizes are used (from 6500 to 12,000 peoples) according to the expected prevalence rate of the studied area. All the new cases detected through these surveys are notified to the National Departments in charge of leprosy programmes. Two surveys are already achieved (Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon), a third one in on the way.

Africa, Central↗

[Economic aspects of the treatment of leg ulcers].

The authors have compared the healing time and the cost of leg ulcers of venous origin according to whether they were treated on an out-patient basis or by admission to hospital. The healing times were extremely similar, but the cost of cure by hospital admission was twenty times as great. Although one cannot claim to cure all leg ulcers on an out-patient basis, it is clear that significant public economies could be achieved by avoiding or shortening some costly hospital admissions.

Adult↗

Mechanisms of T-cell unresponsiveness in leprosy.

We analysed the mechanisms of T-cell unresponsiveness to Mycobacterium leprae antigens and to unrelated antigens or T-cell mitogens in human leprosy and in an experimental model of murine infection by M. lepraemurium (MLM). In human leprosy, monoclonal antibodies OKT3, OKT4 and OKT8 were used to enumerate T-cell subpopulations within peripheral blood. Increased percentages of OKT8+ cytotoxic/suppressor cells were observed in untreated, non-reactional lepromatous patients. Conversely, lepromatous patients suffering from erythema nodosum leprosum, an Arthus-like phenomenon, exhibited a transient drop in the percentage of OKT8+ cells with a correlative increase in the proliferative response to T-cell mitogens. We studied the proliferative response to M. leprae of OKT4+ and OKT8+ cells isolated by a negative selection procedure using antibody-induced cytotoxicity plus complement. None of these subpopulations proliferated when incubated with M. leprae. In some patients, control treatment of mononuclear cells with complement alone induced the reappearance of a strong proliferative response to M. leprae, suggesting the existence of an active suppressor mechanism through soluble factors of an unknown nature. In MLM-induced murine leprosy, a progressive decrease was observed in the proliferative response to concanavalin A (ConA), and an early decrease in interleukin 2 activity in supernatants from ConA-stimulated spleen cells. Splenic T cells from MLM-infected mice transferred into naive recipients accelerated the local MLM growth in these recipients, suggesting that suppressor T cells may play a pathogenic role in the progression of MLM infection.

Animals↗