Once again about tuberculosis …

AUTHORS : Malyavkin B.G.

RELEVANT UNIVERSITIES : Odessa, Ukraine

YEAR : 2004 | Category : Educational

Being engaged in multiresonance therapy, I could not help but note that over the past 2 years the number of patients with newly diagnosed tuberculosis has sharply increased. Moreover, these patients are not just homeless people, but quite prosperous people. I live in a southern resort town. We do not have industrial giants poisoning nature, and the incidence of tuberculosis is steadily growing! I will not go into the social, environmental and epidemiological aspects of tuberculosis.

I just want to remind once again the long-known features of this disease. The first feature is the systemic character of tuberculosis. In other words, Koch’s bacillus affects the eyes, meninges, musculoskeletal system, digestive organs, peritoneum, urogenital organs, skin, pleura, lungs. It is no coincidence that I put lungs at the end of this list. The trouble is that ordinary people and, unfortunately, many doctors begin to think about tuberculosis only when it affects the lungs.

But even when the patient has an inflammatory infiltrate or abscess in the lungs, the phthisiatrician confirms tuberculosis only if mycobacteria are found. No bacillus – no tuberculosis! By the way, I am modestly silent about the reliability of laboratory tests of sputum, wash water, etc. And what to do if the patient has an initial stage of the disease, and he is not yet a bacillus excretor, his blood picture is relatively calm, and on radiographs there are scanty symptoms.