Introduction
Mycobacterium leprae, an acid-fast, rod-shaped bacillus, obligate
intracellular pathogen causing leprosy, or Hansen disease. Leprosy is a
chronic slowly growing granulomatous disease involving the skin,
peripheral nerves, eyes, and mucosa of upper respiratory tract. It is
usually found in tropical and developing countries. Leprosy occurrence
in Saudi Arabia is rare, it was reported that 242 freshly diagnosed
leprosy cases were in Saudi Arabia from 2003 to 2012. According to the
Ridley and Jopling classification system, there are five types of
leprosy: lepromatous (LL), tuberculoid (TT), borderline borderline (BB),
borderline lepromatous (BL) and borderline tuberculoid (BT). They have
also used the term indeterminate leprosy (IL) when a biopsy sample shows
evidence of leprosy without a clear clinical manifestation. (3) If left
untreated, leprosy can cause progressive and permanent damage to the
skin, nerves, limbs, and eyes. Thus, rapid recognition is crucial to
avoid complications of leprosy.