Leonine facies

Leonine facies (Latin lion face ) is a medical term. In the leprosy diagnosis, he was used early in the medieval medicine for end-stage disease. In modern medical history of the term was already established in the 19th century from Hamburg dermatologist Eduard Arning. In addition to leprosy is in leukemia, Melkersson -Rosenthal syndrome, acromegaly and Sezary syndrome, the symptom of facies leonina known.

When lepromatösen leprosy, this clinical picture can be found next to the symmetric sensory loss in the final stages of the disease and is characterized by loss of scalp hair, eyebrows and eyelashes ( Madarosis ), destruction of the nasal cartilage and coarsening of facial features. Also, liver, kidneys, testes and eyes are affected in addition to the nerves and the skin at this stage of the disease.

The fact that leprosy symptoms perceived as making animal-like, is also reflected in the description of deformations of the hands. This clinical picture is known as " hands -mouth ."