[Tuberculosis sequelae]

Although pulmonary tuberculosis decreased remarkably by antituberculous chemotherapy, we have had a lot of patients associated with sequelae who need medical treatment for many symptoms several or dozens years later. Moreover, in these days the delayed detection of pulmonary tuberculosis that is still an important problem may cause new sequelae. However, we have not had the clear definition of tuberculosis sequelae. Then I would like to definite the tuberculosis sequelae as follow. In a narrow sense, the sequelae is a pathological status that is caused by many patho-anatomical change in the healing process of pulmonary tuberculosis and need clinical treatment for many symptoms. The pulmonary tuberculosis sequelae include secondary infection such as aspergillosis, atypical mycobacteriosis and bacterial airway infection. In a broad sense, the sequelae also represent a pathological status with many symptoms after treatment that is caused by injuries in various organs with tuberculosis. I pointed out the problems of sequelae at this conference sixteen years ago. These problems may be beyond the category of tuberculosis study, but are extremely important for chest physicians.