[Tuberculosis in respiratory system--tracheo-bronchial tuberculosis, pulmonary tuberculosis, tuberculous pleurisy and...

Tuberculosis in respiratory system is most common in mycobacterial infections. Eighty percent of the patients with pulmonary tuberculosis visit hospital because of the respiratory symptoms, and only 10% of them were discovered by chest X-ray mass screening. In order to confirm respiratory tuberculosis, various methods to obtain specimens for mycobacterial examination have been carried out; hypertonic saline nebulizing for sputum expectoration, trans-bronchoscopic biopsy, percutaneous needle aspiration, and so on. The recent development of imaging modalities including CT, MRI, and ultrasonogram have been much contributed to the improvement of diagnosis of pleural tuberculosis. Basically, the main treatment for respiratory tuberculosis is chemotherapy except chronic tuberculous thoracic empyema. The initial chemotherapy regimen should be chosen among the three arms; [INH + RFP + PZA + EB (or SM)] x 2-->[INH + RFP] x 6, [INH + RFP + EB (or SM)] x 6-->[INH + RFP] x 3-6, and [INH + RFP] x 6-9. The sputum positive patient is recommended to have the chemotherapy regimen including PZA. In the patients with tracheo-bronchial tuberculosis an attention should be paid for the airway narrowing or obstruction during and after the scheduled chemotherapy. For a part of patients with tuberculous pleurisy and thoracic empyema, a surgical treatment must be indicated.