Leprosy
Mailing List – May 10th , 2010
Ref.: Clofazimine
for ENL in pregnancy
From: E. Duncan,
Peebles
,
Scotland
,
UK
Dear
Dr de Koning,
I
refer to your LML message dated 02/05/2010.
Thank you for your concern.
I too have been very concerned about the availability of
Clofazimine.
I have been working in
Ethiopia
[ALERT] for many years initially with the Medical Research
Council (MRC) in 1975-8, and up to 1991 and more recently under AHRI
with the cohort study [A9] of mothers with leprosy and their babies [now
aged mid-thirties]. With
the MRC we used a lot of Clofazimine not just for erythema nodosum
leprosum (ENL) reaction, but for people who had dapsone resistance,
and for those with severe and prolonged nerve damage/neuritis.
On
one of the last follow up assessments of the mothers I saw one of
the mothers who at age 16 was one of the youngest admitted to the
study who had very severe ENL with neuritis during pregnancy, who for
the sake of the unborn baby could not be treated with high dose
steroids, and instead had long term clofazimine. She
had the most wonderful long term results with beautiful hands and feet
and no nerve function deficit.
I will be interested to hear of how you get on in your searches ...
Best wishes,
Elizabeth Duncan
