Clofazimine for ENL in pregnancy

Leprosy Mailing List – May 10^th , 2010

Ref.: Clofazimine for ENL in pregnancy
From: E. Duncan, Peebles , Scotland , UK

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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