[Morphological diagnosis of tuberculosis under present-day conditions]

The paper presents general statistical data on morbidity and mortality rates of tuberculosis, which show positive trends in recent years, with exception of those of its concurrence with HIV infection. The tasks of the morphological diagnosis of tuberculosis are divided into 4 groups: 1) to refine approaches to detecting mycobacteria in tissues; 2) to optimize the postmortem diagnosis of tuberculosis; 3) to optimize the lifetime differential diagnosis of tuberculosis and to develop methods for predicting its course; 4) to study the pathogenesis of tuberculosis from the standpoint of modern views on an infectious process. The data suggesting that the tissue forms of mycobacteria, the types of inflammatory responses, and the specific features of the pathogenesis of tuberculosis call for further investigations are given. To establish the real role of nontuberculous mycobacteria, to study the likelihood that the patient will be superinfected with other M. tuberculosis genotypes, and to elaborate a uniform (clinical, pathogenetic, and morphological) classification of tuberculosis should be also regarded as the most important tasks in its morphological examination.