[Caseous pneumonia: diagnosis, clinical aspects and treatment]

Fifty-two patients with caseous pneumonia (CP) (whose age ranged from 18 to 60 years) admitted to a specialized tuberculosis facility of the general health care system were followed up. On admission, all the patients had marked intoxication and bronchopulmonary manifestations of the disease. X-study revealed lesions to one lobe in 19.2%, to 2 lobes in 32.7%, to 3 lobes or more in 48.1% of the patients. At the same time, all the patients had destructive changes with large and giants caverns in 57.7% of cases. The sputa of all 52 patients exhibited Mycobacteria tuberculosis (MBT), whose primary drug resistance being established. The nonspecific microflora composed of gram-positive cocci, gram-negative bacilli, fungi of the genus Candida in over 60% of patients was found in the sputa in two thirds of cases. A retrospective analysis indicated that CP had been correctly diagnosed only in 11.5% of patients within the first fortnight, in 65.4% by the end of the first month and by the beginning of the second, and in 23.1% following 2 months. The main reason for untimely diagnosis of CP was no sputum test for MBT. An algorithm of early CP diagnosis at general hospitals was developed, which includes a compulsory test of 3 sputum smears by the Ziehl-Nielsen method in all patients with pneumonia on admission and 2 weeks after treatment with wide-spectrum antibiotics. Chemotherapy in CP patients was long-term and combined 4-5 essential drugs within the first 4 months with obligatory correction after there was evidence for drug resistance. A course of nonspecific antibiotic therapy and a developed complex of symptomatic and pathogenetic treatments were compulsory. By the cessation of bacterial isolation, the efficiency of combined treatment was 82.7%, but a question as to a surgical intervention that is a compulsory component of CP therapy always arose at the final stage.