[Antioxidant treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis in patients with chronic alcoholism]

Study of the state of the antioxidant system (AOS) and lipid peroxidation (LPO), according to the data on the alpha-tocopherol content, diene conjugates and acid erythrocyte hemolysis in 69 patients suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis concurrent with chronic alcoholism, has revealed significant differences as against the findings related to healthy subjects (36), to those with stage 11 alcoholism (31) and pulmonary tuberculosis patients (51). Favourable changes in the AOS and LPO during complex treatment that includes antioxidant agents were less manifested in patients with combined pathology and appeared at later terms than in tuberculosis patients. The antioxidant therapy of tuberculosis in chronic alcoholics should take a prolonged time, at least 4 months, since the first favourable changes in the AOS and LPO parameters appear after 4 months, while normalization does not set in even after 6 months.