Objective To investigate the clinical and pathological features of 21
elderly patients with
tuberculosis detected at
autopsy.
Methods Retrospectively analyzed the data of underlying
diseases,clinical characteristics,
clinical diagnosis,and
causes of death for these 21
elderly patients with
tuberculosis detected at
autopsy. Results All the 21
patients were man,mean age was(88.0±6,9)years and had one or more concomitant
diseases.
Cough,
sputum and
fever were frequent due to other complicated respiratory
infection.
Anemia,
hypoalbuminemia,decreased
body mass index,increased
erythrocyte sedimentation rate were very common in
elderly patients,
sputum acid-fast
bacillus was positive in 11.8%cases.There was no primary
tuberculosis.There were 9
secondary tuberculosis,3 disseminated
pulmonary tuberculosis,19
tuberculous pleurisy and 9 non-
pulmonary tuberculosis detected at
autopsy.Compared with the result of
autopsy,the clinical and
radiography diagnosis accuracies were poor.Only 5
patients were clinically diagnosed as
tuberculosis.All 5patients received antitubereulous
chemotherapy,2 of them ceased
therapy due to
liver or renal
toxicity. Conclusions
Tuberculosis is a systemic
disease in
elderly patients.Because of medical aspects of ageing,co-morbid states,ignorance and mis-
perception of symptoms,and atypical manifestation of
disease,the
diagnosis is difficult in this
population.Our study confirms the importance of considering
tuberculosis as a
diagnosis in
elderly even in the absence of typical clinical radiological presentations.