Leprosy has been shown to affect almost all systems human body and abnormalities in functions of autonomic nerves innervating various parts have been observed in several studies. However, in literature, the assessment of the parameters of ventricular repolarization in leprosy patients have not been reported. In our study, we included 28 lepromatous leprosy patients (23 males and 5 females) and 28 normal subjects (22 males and 6 females) as control group. 12 leads EGG were recorded at a speed of 50 mm/s in all persons. Mean QTc interval, maximum QT interval, maximum QTc interval, QT dispersion, and QTc dispersion (415±26 ms, 409±36 ms, 449±29 ms, 48±16 ms, and 53±19 ms, respectively) in lepromatous leprosy patients were significantly longer than that of the normal subjects (401±17 ms, 392±30 ms, 428±23 ms, 35±12 ms, and 41±16 ms, respectively) at similar RR intervals. It was concluded that a reproducible and cheap method ECG in assessment of autonomic function in leprosy patients might be included in addition to other methods.
Key Words: Leprosy, ECG, dispersion, and repolarization
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