A Clinical Study of Tuberculous Pluerisy

Abstract

A clinical study of 38 patients (28 men and 10 women) with tuberculous pluerisy was conducted.The age of these patients ranged from 19 to 92 years, with an average age of 48.9 years. In 30 patients, the chief complaint was fever, and other common complaints included chest pain, dyspnea, andcoughing. Bacillus tuberculosis was found in the pleural fluid of 7.9% of the patients. Tuberculous pluerisywas diagnosed histologically, based on pleural biopsy, in 23.7% of the patients. The diagnosisrate of pleural biopsy was 47.4%. There were no significant differences in resultsof blood and pleuralfluid tests between idiopathic pleurisy and concomitant pleurisy, but the tuberculin skin test waspositive in only 50% of the patients with concomitant pleurisy. The tendency was that the longer thetime period between symptom onset and first examination, the greater the pleural fluid retention .The diagnosis rate of pleural biopsy was influenced by the severity of pleural fluid retention. A thoraciccavity drain was inserted for continuous drainage in 15 patients, and every patient underwentINH+RFP-based chemotherapy. Tuberculous pluerisy is an important disease among patients withpleural fluid retention, thus clinicians need to know how to treat this disease.