What means a sporadic positive sputum culture with scanty colonies of mycobacterium tuberculosis? (From the IUAT trial on preventive chemotherapy of fibrotic lesions).
Sporadic positive cultures, with only a few colonies, in persons with fibrotic lesions, even with stable x-ray lesions may indicate "an isolated relapse of doubtful clinical significance" (7); but in agreement with (7), our findings show that the frequency of consecutive break-down, earlier or later, is so high that either careful follow-up or sufficient preventive therapy, with consideration to drug sensitivity of the bacilli, is mandatory.
D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D009169:Mycobacterium tuberculosis / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D013183:Sputum / Q000382:microbiology*; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy