tuberculosis is an important opportunistic disease among hiv- infected persons worldwide; from march 1999 to feburery 2001 we had seventeen patients with hiv-infection and tuberculosis. here we are presenting the clinical manifestations, diagnosis, treatment and outcome of them. all of them were male, 11 patients had pulmonary and 5 patients had extrapulmonary (pleural effusion 1, hepatic granu...

INTRODUCTION In Tuscany, Tuberculosis incidence is more than triplicate from 1982 to the beginning of the third millennium. The impact of this trend on open population is not known, as updated studies on Tuberculosis prevalence are not available. Tuberculin skin test provides the currently most widely used tool for assessing Tuberculosis transmission in a community and the prevalence of infecti...

In a search for new skin test reagents specific for tuberculosis, we found that the antigen encoded by gene Rv3874 of Mycobacterium tuberculosis elicited delayed-type hypersensitivity in M. tuberculosis-infected guinea pigs but not in control animals immunized with Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) or Mycobacterium avium. The antigen, which was named MTSA-10 (for M. tuberculosi...

By December 1993, only five cases of tuberculosis were observed in the 1030 HIV-positive patients in Edinburgh, U.K., although, on the basis of historical tuberculin skin test data, between four and eight new cases of tuberculosis were expected per year. Of 310 HIV-positive patients, none of the 19 (6.1%) who were tuberculin skin test positive had developed tuberculosis after 87 months (average...

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis remains a serious disease worldwide. Anti-tuberculosis campaigners many times face negative tuberculin skin tests after Bacille Calmette Guérin vaccination. Increasing tuberculin units might be a solution. However, is skin reaction a linear function of tuberculin dose? Are there any side-effects when higher tuberculin doses are administered? CASE PRESENTATION Six simul...

Childhood tuberculosis accounts for a significant proportion of the global tuberculosis disease burden. However, tuberculosis in children is difficult to diagnose, because disease tends to be paucibacillary and sputum samples are often not easy to obtain. The diagnosis of tuberculosis in children is traditionally based on chest radiography, tuberculin skin testing, and mycobacterial staining/cu...

The total blood lymphocyte proliferation assay (TLP) was evaluated as a screening test for infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and was compared with the tuberculin (Mantoux) skin test. The results of TLP assays performed on 33 patients with tuberculosis and 37 non-tuberculous subjects were compared with results of skin tests performed in the previous year. There was a high correlation bet...

The purified protein derivative (PPD) skin test for Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection lacks specificity. We assessed 2 more specific M. tuberculosis antigens (ESAT-6 and CFP-10) by enzyme-linked immunospot assay (ELISPOT) compared with PPD by ELISPOT and skin test in The Gambia. Of 735 household contacts of 130 sputum smear-positive tuberculosis cases, 476 (65%) tested positive by PPD ELISPO...