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Analysis of 18FDG PET/CT Imaging as a Tool for Studying Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infection and Treatment in Non-human Primates
Published on: September 5, 2017
Extremely high levels of central nervous system involvement in miliary tuberculosis
Guirong Wang1, Ruixia Liang2, Qing Sun1
1National Clinical Laboratory on Tuberculosis, Beijing Key Laboratory on Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis, Beijing Chest Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing Tuberculosis and Thoracic Tumor Research Institute, Beiguan St. #9, Beijing, 101149, China.
Background:
Miliary tuberculosis (TB) is one of the severest manifestations of TB that can be lethal when concomitant with the central nervous system (CNS) involvement. Bacteriological, biochemical and radiological methods for find CNS comorbidity in miliary TB was evaluated in this study.
Methods:
Consecutive miliary TB adults were retrospectively enrolled from two designated TB hospitals in China. The capacities of examinations of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), cerebral computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for diagnosis of CNS involvement were assessed.
Results:
Assessment of CNS involvement with a lumbar puncture and/or neuroimaging was undertaken in 282 out of 392 of acute miliary TB. Of these 282 patients, 87.59% (247/282) had CNS involvement. Cerebral contrast-enhanced MRI (96.05%, 170/177) and MRI (93.15%, 204/219) yielded significantly higher sensitivities over CSF examination (71.92%, 146/203, P < 0.001) and CT (34.69%, 17/49, P < 0.001). The sensitivity of CSF examination was superior to CT scan (P < 0.001). Although 59.65% (134/225) miliary TB patients acquired bacteriological evidence with sputum examination, the positivity was only 8.82% (21/238) for CSF examination by conventional and molecular tests.
Conclusion:
Almost all miliary TB had CNS involvement and MRI demonstrated outstanding potential over other methods. Therefore, a routinely screening of CNS TB should be strongly suggested in miliary TB and MRI could be used as the initial approach in resources rich settings.
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