A pilot study on hypogonadism in male leprosy patients in rural tertiary care hospital in central India

Background: Leprosy is a chronic granulomatous infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae. Besides the skin and peripheral nerves, it also involves many internal organs. Testicular involvement is mainly seen in leprosy. Hypogonadism in males with leprosy can occur due the involvement of testis. Aim: The aim was to evaluate the gonadal function impairment in males with leprosy and to analyze the relation of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), and testosterone to the activity, duration, and disease classification in Central India. Patients and Methods: This was a prospective observational pilot study. We evaluated 30 patients of leprosy. They were subjected to careful history taking, dermatological and genital examination, assessment of FSH, LH, and testosterone levels, and slit skin smear for acid-fast bacilli. Diagnosis of leprosy was confirmed histopathologically. The collected data were encoded and entered electronically in a computer excel worksheet 2010 version. The statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 17.0 for Windows. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to establish relationship between different variables. P ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: A positive correlation was found between FSH and LH hormones which was highly significant, whereas there was a negative correlation between testosterone and FSH and LH levels. There was a positive correlation between age, duration of disease, and reaction in leprosy with those of FSH and LH levels. There was a positive correlation between disease activity bacillary index (BI) and FSH, LH and a negative correlation between BI and testosterone. Conclusion: It is recommended that lepromatous leprosy patients should be routinely screened for hypogonadism using FSH, LH, and testosterone levels.