[Clinical evaluation on causes of death in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis who died within one year after diagnosing as TB].
We evaluated the cause of death in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis who died within one year after diagnosing as tuberculosis. Of 325 bacillary patients during the past seven years, 43 (13.2%) died within one year. Twenty-three patients (53.5%) died directly of tuberculosis. In this group, 13 patients died in emaciation state. Most of them were aged and under a poor nutritional condition. Some patients died in spite of improvement of tuberculosis. The fact indicates the need to detect tuberculosis as early as possible in elderly persons, and treatment should be initiated immediately. Eight patients died of respiratory failure and their chest X-ray film showed wade-spread tuberculosis. Seven of the patients died in spite of initiating treatment within one month after the onset of symptoms. This fact suggests the importance of regular check up by chest X-ray to detect tuberculosis early. Two patients died of massive hemoptysis. They had an episode of bloody sputum and the laboratory examination showed anemia. On the other hand, 20 patients died due to coexisting diseases unrelated to tuberculosis. Ten patients died of malignant diseases and most of them were lung cancer. Two patients died of hepatic failure possibly caused by the adverse reaction of TB chemotherapy. The interval between the onset of the treatment and death was less than a month, and the fact suggests the need to observe carefully for adverse reactions especially in the early stage of treatment.
Ohse
H
H
National Seiranso Hospital, Ibaraki, Japan.
Saito
T
T
Watanabe
S
S
Hirano
K
K
Kadono
K
K
Nemoto
E
E
Fukai
S
S
Yanai
N
N
Nakayama
M
M
Endo
T
T
Ishii
Y
Y
Hasegawa
S
S
D000368:Aged; D002423:Cause of Death; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000150:complications / Q000401:mortality; D014397:Tuberculosis, Pulmonary / Q000401:mortality*