[The causes of death of pulmonary tuberculosis: late sequelae of pulmonary tuberculosis]

Abstract

We investigated the causes of death of late sequelae of pulmonary tuberculosis. Chronic respiratory failure is one of the most frequent cause of death in the patients of late sequelae of pulmonary tuberculosis. We compared the long term prognosis of chronic respiratory failure in case of emphysema and pulmonary tuberculosis. In the patients with chronic respiratory failure by pulmonary emphysema, the prognosis was poor in those with pulmonary hypertension. But in case of late sequelae of pulmonary tuberculosis, prognosis was not affected by presence or absence of pulmonary hypertension. The determinants of prognosis of late sequelae of pulmonary tuberculosis are the indication of home oxygen therapy, malnutrition, and hypoxemia. Fungal infection, especially aspergilloma, is a common secondary infection of late sequelae of pulmonary tuberculosis. We investigated forty-two cases of aspergilloma as late sequelae of pulmonary tuberculosis, and of those 15 patients died. The causes of death were pneumonia and respiratory failure. Measurement of galactomannan antigen of aspergillus in serum using ELISA or PCR, it was apparent that the outcome was poor in the patients positive for antigen. It suggested that the prognosis of the patients with aspergilloma related with some degree of invasion of Aspergillus in parenchyma. It was reported that neoplasm is closely related to chronic tuberculous empyema. Lymphoma is most frequently complicated with chronic tuberculous empyema, and squamous cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, sarcoma and carcinoid were reported as complication of chronic empyema. We reported the case of angiosarcoma, originated from chronic empyema in left thoracic cavity formed after being treated for tuberculosis with artificial pneumothorax. Recently, the number of patients with late sequelae of pulmonary tuberculosis have been decreased, but some severe cases of patients of pulmonary tuberculosis will suffer from late sequelae of pulmonary tuberculosis, and that is still a great problem of the clinical course of pulmonary tuberculosis.