Epidemiological danger of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis and alcoholism refusing treatment

The comparative evaluation of the epidemiological danger of alcohol-addicted persons with pulmonary tuberculosis who evaded treatment (the test group of 133 persons) and that of tuberculosis patients receiving adequate treatment under hospital conditions (the control group of 162 patients) was made. The morbidity level among relations having contacts with the patients evading treatment exceeded the morbidity level in the families of tuberculosis patients undergoing adequate treatment 4.5-fold for adults and 3.4-fold for children and adolescents, the contamination level in the latter group being twice as high. Although no cases of the disease were registered in the foci of infection where sick persons evading treatment had low bacterial discharge, still the elevated level of infection among children and adolescents in these foci as compared with the foci where tuberculosis patients did not evade treatment (35.0% and 21.7% respectively) indicated that the foci of infection where such aggravating factors as alcohol addiction in the source of infection was present were rightly considered to be epidemiologically most dangerous. Persons suffering with both tuberculosis and alcoholism should be subjected to compulsory hospitalization as early as possible.     

Drug resistance in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis.

A review of the records of 984 patients admitted to hospital from 1970 through 1973 with bacteriologically proven pulmonary tuberculosis showed bacterial resistance to one or more antituberculosis drugs in 103 (10.5%). Among the patients who had had previous drug treatment for tuberculosis the prevalence of drug resistance was 20% in the Canadian-born patients and 69.4% in the recent immigrants. Among the patients who had had no previous drug treatment the prevalence of drug resistance (primary resistance) was 2.7% in Canadian-born patients but 11.4% in recent immigrants. Because of the higher prevalence of drug resistance among recent immigrants and the finding in recent years that increasingly more tuberculosis patients in Ontario are recent immigrants, drug resistance in this group is likely to assume even more importance in the future.     

Rifampicin pharmacokinetics in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis with concomitant helminthiasis

Blood kinetics of rifampicin (rifadin) was studied in 57 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis. In 30 of them concomitant helminthiasis was diagnosed. It was shown that in the patients with helmintic invasion the blood levels of rifampicin were much lower (p less than 0.01). This was probably due to disorders in the hepatobiliar system detected with ultrasonic examinations and radioisotope hepatography.     

Natural killer cells in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis]

In the existent literature the number of works devoted to the subpopulation of natural killer cells (NK) is not significant. The purpose of the present study was to determine the NK content in the blood of pulmonary tuberculosis patients; to establish correlation of the level of their content with the content of the previously studied T-lymphocyte subpopulations; to determine the intensity of the fluorescence of NK, CD3+, CD4+, CD8+ lymphocytes. The data were obtained on the significant increase in the NK mean level in tuberculosis patients (20.37 +/- 1.74) as compared with that in healthy subjects (12.77 +/- 2.56). The NK fluorescence intensity (56.33 +/- 2.28) conditioned by the Fc-receptor expression intensity is significantly lower than the analogous index in healthy volunteers (82.4 +/- 7.69). The NK level in the blood of tuberculosis patients correlates with the content of CD3+, CD8+ lymphocytes as well as with the CD4+/CD8+ index.