[Home oxygen therapy (HOT) in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis sequelae--comparison between patients medically...

In Japan there are about 40,000 patients under home oxygen therapy (HOT), of whom about 30 to 40% are pulmonary tuberculosis sequelae (TBS). These patients can be divided into three groups depending on the treatments they had, Group 1: those who had medical treatments only, Group 2: those who had artificial pneumothorax, and Group 3: those who had thoracoplasties or other surgical treatments. The purpose of this study was to observe the distributions and possible differences in the survival rates among these groups. The study included 1537 patients with TBS under HOT followed at National Hospitals and Sanatoriums nationwide in Japan. In 819 patients the treatments were specified and of those 354 were in Group 1, 29 in Group 2, and 436 in Group 3, so that the proportion of surgically treated patients in PTS was estimated between 28.4% (436/ 1537) to 53.2% (436/819). The ages at the onset of tuberculosis, at the start of HOT and the intervals in between were 36.6, 66.2 and 29.8 in Group 1, and 26.8, 65.5, and 38.1 in Group 3 respectively. Though the ages at the start of HOT were the same, those at the onset of tuberculosis were about ten years younger in Group 3 than in Group 1. Comparing Group 1 and 3, the survival rates after the initiation of HOT (Kaplan-Meier method) was better in Group 2 (surgically treated) than in Group 1 (medically treated). It is speculated that the reason could be a better preservation of the function of the remaining lung in the surgically treated and a higher incidence of obstructive impairments in the medically treated patients.