Advances in imaging chest tuberculosis: blurring of differences between children and adults

This article reviews the ongoing role of imaging in the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) and its complications. A modern imaging classification of TB, taking into account both adults and children and the blurring of differences in the presentation patterns, must be absorbed into daily practice. Clinicians must not only be familiar with imaging features of TB but also become expert at detecting these when radiologists are unavailable. Communication between radiologists and clinicians with regard to local constraints, patterns of disease, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) coinfection rates, and imaging parameters relevant for management (especially in drug resistance programs) is paramount for making an impact with imaging, and preserving clinician confidence. Recognition of special imaging, anatomic and vulnerability differences between children and adults is more important than trying to define patterns of disease exclusive to children

Diagnosis and management of pneumonia in the emergency department.

Pneumonia is a condition that is often treated by emergency physicians. This article reviews the diagnosis and management of pneumonia in the emergency department and highlights dilemmas in diagnostic testing, use of blood and sputum cultures, hospital admission decisions, infection control, quality measures for pneumonia care, and empiric antimicrobial therapy

Diagnosis of tuberculosis in children: increased need for better methods.

In the last decade tuberculosis (TB) has reemerged as a major worldwide public health hazard with increasing incidence among adults and children. Although cases among children represent a small percentage of all TB cases, infected children are a reservoir from which many adult cases will arise. TB diagnosis in children usually follows discovery of a case in an adult, and relies on tuberculin skin testing, chest radiograph, and clinical signs and symptoms. However, clinical symptoms are nonspecific, skin testing and chest radiographs can be difficult to interpret, and routine laboratory tests are not helpful. Although more rapid and sensitive laboratory testing, which takes into account recent advances in molecular biology, immunology, and chromatography, is being developed, the results for children have been disappointing. Better techniques would especially benefit children and infants in whom early diagnosis is imperative for preventing progressive TB

The role of Chest HRCT in diagnosis active tuberculosis & lung destruction

Tuberculosis is a public health problem caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In 2021 there will be 10.6 million cases in the world, and Indonesia ranks 2nd with 700,000 cases. In 2022, there will be 17,303 cases in North Sumatra Province and 2,430 cases in Medan City. In current practice, evaluation and diagnosis of active tuberculosis relies on bacteriological examination and Chest Radiographs. However, Chest Radiographs have limited specificity and high intraobserver and interobserver variability. HRCT is also not widely used as a routine option for patients suspected of suffering from tuberculosis, even though HRCT has high accuracy in detecting tuberculosis. We present a case of a patient with active pulmonary tuberculosis and lung destruction e.c. advanced pulmonary tuberculosis (MDR-Tuberculosis) (declared cured in 2018 after 2 years of treatment). This patient was evaluated with chest radiograph and chest HRCT. In this case, the initial findings on the Chest Radiograph, showed the impression of inactive tuberculosis but on further examination with chest HRCT, there was a tree in bud image which indicated active tuberculosis. This shows that there are limitations in diagnosing tuberculosis activity using Chest Radiographs. Due to the significant role of HRCT in the diagnosis of tuberculosis activity, it is necessary to consider the use of HRCT in the evaluation of patients with tuberculosis

Guidelines for the proper use of etanercept in Japan

Application of biological agents targeting inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) dramatically caused a paradigm shift in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Infliximab, a chimeric anti-TNF-α monoclonal antibody, has initially been introduced to Japan in 2003 and shown to be dramatically effective in alleviating arthritis refractory to conventional treatment. However, serious adverse events such as bacterial pneumonia, tuberculosis, and Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia were reported to be in relatively high incidence; i.e., 2%, 0.3%, and 0.4%, respectively, in a strict postmarketing surveillance of an initial 4000 cases in Japan. Etancercept, a recombinant chimeric protein consisting of p75 TNF-α receptor and human IgG, was subsequently introduced to Japan in March of 2005. We therefore drew up treatment guidelines for the use of etanercept to avoid potential serous adverse events, since only approximately 150 cases have been included in the clinical study of etanercept in Japan. The guidelines were initially designed by the principal investigators (N.M, T.T., K.E.) of rheumatoid arthritis study groups of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW), Japan, and finally approved by the board of directors of the Japan College of Rheumatology. The MHLW assigned a duty to the pharmaceutical companies to perform a complete postmarketing surveillance of an initial 3000 cases to explore any adverse events, and this was performed according to the treatment guidelines shown in this article

Evaluation of the utility of specific CXR features for diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis in young children using multiple readers

Includes bibliographical referencesINTRODUCTION: The diagnosis of childhood pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) can be notoriously difficult. The chest X-ray (CXR) is a significant diagnostic resource in the detection of PTB in children. However, non-specific radiological features combined with variable inter-observer assessment s contribute to diagnostic uncertainty. The CXR would be of most value when used specifically to evaluate those features of childhood TB that it shows best and where expert observers agree, namely those signs indicating lymphadenopathy. AIM: To identify simple and reliable CXR features of primary TB in children by determining signs and anatomical sites of best observer agreement. METHOD: This is a retrospective descriptive study within a clinical trial performed by the South African TB Vaccine Initiative (SATVI). Healthy BCG-vaccinated newborn infants in a high TB prevalence rural area in Worcester, near Cape Town, South Africa, were followed for a minimum of two years for possible incident al pulmonary TB. Three independent, blinded, expert paediatric radiologists reported the resultant CXR images using a standardised data collection tick sheet, on which the specific anatomical sites and signs of pathology consistent with pulmonary TB were recorded. The first 200 original data collection tick sheets were sampled and recorded in a pre-compiled data spreadsheet for our study. The sampled data were t hen analysed using kappa statistics. RESULTS: The overall combined agreement for airway compression (by presumed lymphadenopathy) was 0.5%. Five % of the CXR's had soft tissue densities reflecting lymphadenopathy on the frontal view and 5% on the lateral view. The most common site reflecting lymphadenopathy through airway narrowing or displacement was the left main bronchus. The hilar region (kappa 0.27) on the frontal CXR and behind bronchus intermedius (kappa 0.18) on the lateral were the most common sites of soft tissue densities reflecting lymphadenopathy. There were no positive findings for cavitation or pleural effusion. The overall decisions reflecting PTB (lymphadenopathy or miliary) by each individual reader were 27.6% by Reader 1, 8.5% by Reader 2 and 24.6 % by Reader 3. Abnormal findings not specific for PTB were found in 3.5 % by Reader 1, 10.5% by Reader 2 and 3.5% by Reader 3.68. 3 % of the radiographs were reported as normal by Reader 1, 81.9% by Reader 2 and 66.8 % by Reader 3. Only 5% of the radiographs were found to be unreadable by one reader. The overall agreement of all three readers on PTB was 14.6 % and for normal CXR 49.2%. CONCLUSIONS: The fair degree of agreement amongst expert readers suggests that the CXR alone is not a reliable tool for detecting pulmonary TB and should be utilised in conjunction with the clinical features and/or skin tests and blood results. Soft tissue masses rather than airway compression are a more reliable sign for lymphadenopathy, with the most agreed upon sites on the frontal projection for soft tissue mass detection being the right hilar region, followed by the left hilum. Unfortunately, this study could not confirm the usefulness of the CXR in subcategorising PTB into severe and non-severe groups due to the absence of any positive features for severe PTB in the selected sample. The use of prescribed tick-sheets with specified features for detecting lymphadenopathy did not have the expected impact of promoting interobserver consensus of CXR findings in children in terms of detection of TB. The absence of a credible reference standard for lymphadenopathy remains a significant limitation

Optimal tuberculosis case-finding methodologies for field trials of new tuberculosis vaccines in young children

Includes bibliographical references.There is paucity of evidence to guide case-finding strategies in field trials of new tuberculosis vaccines conducted in young children. To investigate case-finding and case detection methods for tuberculosis in tuberculosis field trials conducted in young children

Efficacy of cartridge based nucleic acid amplification test to diagnose tubercular pleural effusion

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major health concern worldwide. Extra pulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) in India accounts up to 20% of all tuberculosis cases. EPTB often remains undetected and untreated due to variable clinical presentation and lack of diagnostic means. Early detection of TB and drug resistance is important in the management of TB. The aim of present study was to assess the role of cartridge based nucleic acid amplification test in rapid diagnosis of tubercular pleural effusion.Methods: The study screened 211 symptomatic patients. The patients with clinical and radiological presentations suggestive of pleural effusion were analyzed using light’s criteria to make a diagnosis of tubercular pleural effusion; these patients submitted pleural fluid sample for smear microscopy after concentration for presence of acid fast bacilli under light emitting diode based fluorescent microscopy (LED-FM), and for cartridge based nucleic acid amplification test (CBNAAT) using GX4 GeneXpert MTB/Rif test system. The results were statistically analyzed.Results: Out of patients who had pleural effusion without any pulmonary tuberculosis, pleural fluid biochemistry analyses using light’s criteria detected 20 tubercular pleural effusions (11 male and 9 female). Seven patients had history of extrapulmonary tuberculosis in past, all of them received treatment with effective treatment compliance in past. Pleural fluid microscopic examination for detection of acid-fast bacilli was not able to detect acid-fast bacilli in any of these 20 patients diagnosed with tubercular pleural effusion. CBNAAT could authentically detect M. tuberculosis in 5/20 patients diagnosed with tubercular pleural effusion. There was no impact of gender, previous history of tuberculosis, history of anti-tuberculosis treatment (ATT) intake, or compliance to ATT on CBNAAT status in this study.Conclusions: CBNAAT has the potential to significantly authenticate tubercular etiology in some of smear-negative pleural fluid specimens with rapid test results. It has an added advantage to assess the rifampicin drug sensitivity. All this contribute hugely in diagnosis and management of tubercular pleural effusion

A Enhanced Approach for Identification of Tuberculosis for Chest X-Ray Image using Machine Learning

Lungs are the primary organs affected by the infectious illness tuberculosis (TB). Mycobacterium tuberculosis, often known as Mtb, is the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. When a person speaks, spits, coughs, or breathes in, active tuberculosis can quickly spread through the air. Early TB diagnosis takes some time. Early detection of the bacilli allows for straightforward therapy. Chest X-ray images, sputum images, computer-assisted identification, feature selection, neural networks, and active contour technologies are used to diagnose human tuberculosis. Even when several approaches are used in conjunction, a more accurate early TB diagnosis can still be made. Worldwide, this leads to a large number of fatalities. An efficient technology known as the Deep Learning approach is used to diagnose tuberculosis microorganisms. Because this technology outperforms the present methods for early TB diagnosis, Despite the fact that death cannot be prevented, it is possible to lessen its effects

The efficacy of intermittent directly observed isoniazid in preventing tuberculosis in HIV-infected adults with advanced disease

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-170).[Introduction] Meta-analysis of the treatment of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) in HIV-infected adults has shown significant reduction in the incidence of tuberculosis in participants with a positive tuberculin skin test (TST), but not in those with a negative TST. However, there are insufficient data on patients with advanced HIV disease from high tuberculosis incidence areas. It is important to exclude tuberculosis prior to such preventive therapy, but this can be difficult in patients with symptomatic HIV disease. A tuberculosis screening instrument is thus needed to ensure that patients placed on preventive therapy do not have tuberculosis. Furthermore, to ensure adherence and avoid drug resistance optimal supervision of the treatment administrations is required. [ Methods ] Patients with clinically advanced HIV disease were screened for active tuberculosis using a symptom questionnaire, measured weight loss, chest radiography, sputum microscopy and culture prior to receiving tuberculosis preventive therapy. Once tuberculosis was excluded, a randomized doubleblind trial was conducted comparing INH with placebo among TST negative status participants with WHO Stage 3 or 4 HIV disease. INH/placebo was administered for 12 months by patient-nominated supervisors. TST-positive participants were given open-label INH. Participants who did not have access to ART were followed up for 24 months with 6-monthly sputum culture and chest radiography. All those enrolled for the trial were required to visit a clinic on a monthly basis for 12 months during the period of weekly intermittent supervised administration of INH/placebo to assess for tuberculosis and adherence. [ Results ] A total of 118 participants were enrolled: TST was negative in 98. Tuberculosis was diagnosed in 11 of 129 patients screened. A simple screening instrument of two or more of the symptoms cough, night sweats or fever, (plus measured weight loss) had a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 88.1% (against the gold standard of sputum culture) and positive and negative predictive values of 44% and 100%, respectively. In the randomized trial arms, the incidence of tuberculosis was 18/100 person-years (py) in the INH arm and 11.6/100 py in the placebo arm [hazard ratio 1.59, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.57-49)]. There was no significant difference in mortality, hospitalization rate or CD4+ lymphocyte decline. Patient adherence for INH/placebo was 8 5% and was significantly higher among participants with work-based treatment supervisors than among those who were supervised by home-based or community-based treatment supervisors. The daily self-administered treatment (SAT) of cotrimoxazole (CTX) showed a good adherence especially among the TST positive participants, where a greater benefit in terms of survival among participants with good cotrimoxazole adherence was observed