[Variants in the course of tuberculosis and its epidemiology]

The pattern of the tuberculosis incidence in the residents of Ulyanovsk for the period from 1954 to 1987 and the ratio of the exudative and productive types of the tuberculosis process were investigated. In the pattern of the disease incidence observed by 1988 the patients with the exudative and productive types of the process amounted to 61.3 and 38.7 per cent, respectively. The first type was characterized by infiltrative forms (85 per cent) and the second type was characterized by focal forms (76.4 per cent). The differences in the character of the process led to rapid detection of patients with the first type process as well as to increasing numbers of persons with the second type process among the population which manifested itself during mass examinations in the increased proportion of the focal forms in the incidence of tuberculosis followed by their lower frequency.