Abstract

RADA, Elsa; MARZAL, Miguel; ARANZAZU, Nacarid  and  CONVIT, Jacinto. Incremento de óxido nítrico en el suero y sobrenadantes de cultivo de células mononucleares de pacientes con la enfermedad de Hansen en estado reaccional tipo II.. Invest. clín [online]. 2003, vol.44, n.2, pp.129-136. ISSN 0535-5133.

The word "reaction" is used in leprosy to describe signs and symptoms of acute inflammation. Type II reactions, including erythema nodosum leprosum (ENL) occur in the multibacillary forms of Hansen’s disease. Nitric oxide (NO) could play a role in the response of the host, where a high NO production would be involved in acute inflammatory processes. In this paper we evaluate NO production in serum and in the supernatants of mononuclear cell cultures (MNCC), measured indirectly by Griess’ method. The results obtained in serum showed that 52% of patients with ENL (15/29) had a production over 30 µM, distributed as follows: 8/15 had a mean concentration of 36.38 ± ?5.71 µM; 1/15, 70.5 µM and 6/15 had a mean concentration greater than 100 µM (205.97 ± 5 µM). Forty eight percent presented nitrite and nitrate levels lower than 30 µM (18.93 ± 6.15). Only supernatants of mononuclear cell cultures from ENL patients collected at 120 hours of incubation presented NO production levels higher than 10 µM ± 6.53, as compared with the supernatants from the stable polar forms of the disease (lepromatous leprosy and tuberculoid leprosy), where values were 2.52 µM ± 1.18 and 2.69 µM ± 1.07, respectively. These preliminary results show a different metabolic activity in the group of patients with Type II reaction state (ENL).

Keywords : Nitric oxide; erythema nodosum leprosum; inflammation.