[Blood bacteriostatic activity in patients with respiratory tuberculosis]

Vertical diffusion on the Löwenstein-Jensen medium was used to study blood bacteriostatic activity (BBA) in 174 patients with respiratory tuberculosis in relation to the drug resistance of isolated Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MT) strains and to the course of a tuberculous process. There was a clear relationship of BBA to the sensitivity of MT cultures to isoniazid: BAC was high and moderate in 90.8-98.2% of cases if strain drug sensitivity was present and low or null in 98% with drug resistance. The high and medium values of BBA correlated with the clinical indices "improvement" and "significant improvement". Patients with zero and lower values of BBA and isoniazid resistance showed a progressive specific process in 22.0% of cases. Estimation of total BBA by using liquid media is the most informative method.