title: [Two cases of pulmonary tuberculosis with an intra-familial transmission route].
abstract: Two patients with smear-positive adult-type pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) were admitted to our hospital. The patients in case 1 and case 2 were a 33-year-old woman and a 33-year-old man, respectively. None of the patients' family members had any apparent symptom indicating TB. However, the father of patient 1 was found to have recurrent TB with a positive smear in the contact investigation. The mother of patient 2 was then admitted to a hospital with acute respiratory failure caused by recurrence of TB. Her sputum sample also turned out to be smear-positive. Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of the isolates revealed identical DNA patterns in each pair of family members. These cases were typical examples of intra-familial infections involving young adults and their parents. This route of transmission is still important in areas with low prevalence of the disease.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Yamanashi Prefectural Central Hospital, 1-1-1, Fujimi, Kofu-shi, Yamanashi 400-8506, Japan. k-mitaka0801@ych.pref.yamanashi.jp
authors.forename: Keiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mitaka
authors.forename: Takayuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Honda
authors.forename: Kazuhiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fukasawa
authors.forename: Yoshihiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Miyashita
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D014397:Tuberculosis, Pulmonary / Q000635:transmission*