[A clinical study of tuberculous pleurisy].
A clinical study of 38 patients (28 men and 10 women) with tuberculous pleurisy was conducted. The age of these patients ranged from 19 to 92 years, with an average age of 48.9 years. In 30 patients, the chief complaint was fever, and other common complaints included chest pain, dyspnea, and coughing. Bacillus tuberculosis was found in the pleural fluid of 7.9% of the patients. Tuberculous pleurisy was diagnosed histologically, based on pleural biopsy, in 23.7% of the patients. The diagnosis rate of pleural biopsy was 47.4%. There were no significant differences in results of blood and pleural fluid tests between idiopathic pleurisy and concomitant pleurisy, but the tuberculin skin test was positive in only 50% of the patients with concomitant pleurisy. The tendency was that the longer the time period between symptom onset and first examination, the greater the pleural fluid retention. The diagnosis rate of pleural biopsy was influenced by the severity of pleural fluid retention. A thoracic cavity drain was inserted for continuous drainage in 15 patients, and every patient underwent INH + RFP-based chemotherapy. Tuberculous pleurisy is an important disease among patients with pleural fluid retention, thus clinicians need to know how to treat this disease.
Kimura
Kazuhiro
K
First Department of Internal Medicine, Toho University School of Medicine, Omori-nishi 6-11-1, Ota-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
Sugiono
Keishi
K
Sano
Gou
G
Yamada
Hiroyuki
H
Isobe
Kazutoshi
K
Toyama
Katsuhiro
K
Hiroi
Mayumi
M
Ryo
Hidetomi
H
Hojyo
Takako
T
Nakata
Masayuki
M
Uchida
Kou
K
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D014396:Tuberculosis, Pleural / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*