Abstract
We have done clinical investigation on active tuberculosis or nontuberculous mycobacterosis pa-tients with interstitial lung disease and got following conclusions.
1) Active pulmonary tuberculosis or nontuberculous mycobacterosis with interstitial lung disease in hospitalization was 0.95% (9/944) during one month in 1996.
2) We investigated in detail on 33 patients with active tuberculosis or nontuberculous mycobacterosis with interstitial lung disease since 1994. Seventeen patients were chronic idiopathic interstitial pneumonia and 10 patients were collagen associated lung disease. The 90% of interstitial lung dis-ease lead to pulmonary tuberculosis and 80% of these patients was treated with corticosteroid ad-ministration before the diagnosis of active tuberculosis. These findings suggested that active tuberculosis was not a high risk factor for interstitial lung disease.
On the other hand, the immuno-suppressive conditions (age, steroid therapy, collagen disease and other complications) may reactivate domant pulmonary tuberculosis in patients with interstitial lung disease. We recommend that careful assesment of the risk of tuberculosis should be made in any patient for whom corticosteroid therapy is contemplated.
