[Results of treatment in patients with destructive pulmonary tuberculosis without consideration of drug sensitivity in Mycobacterium tuberculosis].

Treatment of 63 patients having infiltrative and disseminated pulmonary tuberculosis attended by decay and bacterial excretion with 4 essential drugs (isoniazid, rifadine, pyrazinamide, ethambutol) and, in disseminated processes, additionally with streptomycin without determining their drug sensitivity contributed to the cessation of sputum acid-resistant mycobacteria in 96.8% and to cavity cicatrisation in 77.8%. Irregular use of izoniazid and rifadine during continued treatment is one of the reasons for the low rates of cavity resolution.

[Implication of microbiological sputum assay in the detection of the lower lung lobular tuberculosis].

Patients with lower lung lobular tuberculosis are shown to be detectable on their visit to a doctor. The diagnostic period lasts several months. Following the WHO recommendations to make a microscopic study of sputum in general health care facilities among persons with suspected tuberculosis allowed the diagnosis to be established in 78.8% of the patients within a month.

[The predictive value of thyroid function in patients with respiratory tuberculosis].

Enzyme immunoassay was used to determine the levels of thyrotropric hormone (TTH), total and free fractions of thyroxine, and triiodothyronine in patients with respiratory tuberculosis. 61.8% of the patients were found to have type 3 euthyroid pathology that was characterized by the elevated levels of thyroxine and triiodothyronine with the unchanged level of TTH and by the absence of clinical manifestations of thyrotoxicosis. The levels of the total and free fractions of triiodothyronine and thyroxine were higher in patients with lung destruction, dissemination, or bacterial isolation than in those without these manifestations. The positive clinical and X-ray changes were followed up by regression of thyroid shifts in patients with the baseline high values of thyroid hormones. Antituberculous drugs did not affect thyroid function.

[Questionnaire survey of patients with tuberculosis: bioethical aspects]. / Bioéticheskie aspekty po anketnomu oprosu bol'nykh tuberkulezom.

An anonymous questionnaire was filled by 129 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis to study bioethical aspects. It contained questions concerning a patient's attitude to obtaining full information on his/her disease, treatments, and physician-patient relations, keeping his/her disease confidential from the relatives, controlled and obligatory treatments.

[Diagnostic difficulties in lower-lobe tuberculosis]. / Slozhnosti i vozmozhnosti diagnostiki tuberkuleza legkikh nizhnedolevoi lokalizatsii.

Lower lobe tuberculosis is diagnosed more frequently than tuberculosis of the superior lobe in subjects seeking medical advice. Clinical improvement achieved by nonspecific antibacterial therapy should not diminish the alertness of the physicians to tuberculosis. When making diagnosis it is necessary to take into consideration: duration of the disease, relatively satisfactory condition in advanced process, negative x-ray picture, contact with tuberculosis patients. Multiple examinations of the sputum for M. tuberculosis are recommended.

[Role of external laser radiation in the multimodality treatment of patients with destructive pulmonary tuberculosis]. / Rol' naruzhnogo lazernogo oblucheniia v kompleksnom lechenii bol'nykh destruktivnym tuberkulezom legkikh.

Patients with destructive pulmonary tuberculosis were examined. Comparing those receiving chemopathogenetic, epicutaneous laser and ultrasound therapies showed an increase in the incidence of cavitary scarring in those taking successive epicutaneous laser and ultrasound therapies and exposed to biologically active points. Epicutaneous laser therapy promoted cicatrization of large cavities.