An Evaluation of Transfer Factor as Immunotherapy for Patients with Lepromatous Leprosy

Abstract

Transfer factor or whole lymphocytes from donors with delayed hypersensitivity to antigens of Mycobacterium leprae were employed to reconstitute delayed hypersensitivity in nine patients with anergic leprosy. Five received a mean of 4.1 X 10⁸ lymphocytes, and four received transfer factor from equivalent cell numbers. One to six days after transfer, six of nine patients experienced erythematous indurative changes within leprous skin infiltrates that regressed by the 12th day. Simultaneously, erythema nodosum occurred in four patients, and fever and arthralgia in three. Six of seven converted from anergy to a delayed hypersensitivity response to M. leprae antigens. The seventh became skin-test positive at the "local" site of injection only, and the test reverted to negative seven days later. Two of three patients showed an increase in perivascular lymphocytic infiltration in the post-transfer skin-test biopsy site. Delayed hypersensitivity reactions to M. leprae antigens can be produced, with lymphocytes or their extracts, in patients with anergic leprosy.