The role of personalized medicine in evaluating the effectiveness of leprosy treatment

Objective. To develop the method for determining the viability of M. leprae using polymerase chain reaction to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment. Materials and Methods. 54 scarifications and 10 biopsies of the skin of patients with leprosy were studied. Ribosomal 16S rRNA genes were used as a target. Results. The high sensitivity and specificity of the developed real-time reverse transcription PCR method was established. M. leprae were detected on average 2 times more often by RT-PCR compared with the bacterioscopy method both before treatment and after its six-month course (p < 0.05). Conclusions. The developed method for determining the viability of M.leprae using reverse transcription PCR allows using a personalized approach to evaluating the effectiveness of antimycobacterial treatment in patients with leprosy.