Comparação de dados epidemiológicos da tuberculose pulmonar em Sorocaba, SP, Brasil, em uma década (1986 - 1996)

Abstract

Em 50 doentes matriculados para o tratamento de tuberculose pulmonar, foram estudadas as informações que antecederam o diagnóstico da doença tais como: sintomatologia antes do diagnóstico, tempo decorrido entre o aparecimento dos sintomas e a procura de assistência médica, tempo decorrido entre o início dos sintomas e o início do tratamento e presença ou não de co-infecção com HIV. Nos últimos dez anos não houve alteração significativa em relação ao tempo de identificação dos casos novos de tuberculose e o início do tratamento.

<b>Avaliação de um escore clínico para rastreamento de suspeitos de tuberculose pulmonar</b>

“…3,11,12 The association between chest pain and pulmonary TB was also found in other studies that described chest pain as a clinical sign of pulmonary TB 13,14 while others considered it only a typical acute manifestation of extrapulmonary (pleural) tuberculosis. 16 Similar to other studies, 4,7 cough was reported in 94.7% of patients with pulmonary TB. According to the WHO recommendations, the Brazilian Ministry of Health guidelines and several authors, active search for new TB cases should be made among people with cough and/or sputum expectoration for more than two or three weeks (symptomatic individuals), hence the importance of cough as a symptom.…”

<![CDATA[<B>Co-infection with <I>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</I> and human immunodeficiency virus</B>: <B>an epidemiological analysis in the city of Taubat�, Brazil</B>]]>

“…Therefore, poor living conditions, poverty, and malnutrition are important factors for the onset of the disease, which means that TB is not only an important chronic disease but also a serious public health problem. (1)(2)12) The present study showed how important HIV is to the epidemiology of TB, since 42.4% of the TB patients who were submitted to HIV testing presented co-infection. Consequently, it is essential that HIV testing be performed so that co-infected patients can be made aware of that fact, which, ideally, will lead them to be more rigorous in their use of the medications and to comply with the treatment in order to prevent the risk of developing resistance to antituberculosis drugs.…”

“…This is higher than the rates of co-infection found in other studies, such as the 9.3% found in the city of Belo Horizonte (located in the state of Minas Gerais), (11) and the 18% found in the city of Sorocaba (located in the state of São Paulo). (12) It is also higher than the levels of co-infection in the state of São Paulo as a whole, where the rate of such co-infection has been reported to be 13%. (4) This high rate of TB-HIV co-infection in the city of Taubaté could be related to various factors, such as the location of the city.…”

Validation of a real-time PCR assay for the molecular identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

“…All positive AFB cultures were subjected to additional phenotypic speciation methods, including biochemical tests such as catalase at room temperature and at 68 °C, niacin, nitrate, pyrazinamidase, and urease. Drug susceptibility testing (DST) was used to distinguish mycobacterial strains ( Job, 1998 ).…”

“…There was hope that tuberculosis would be eradicated by 2000 in developed countries, However, with the AIDS pandemic, pulmonary tuberculosis has become the third most common opportunistic infection in HIV-positive patients ( Job, 1998 ). The occurrence of TB co-infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) caused a change in the epidemiological trends of TB, which now presented as an important opportunistic pathogen associated with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) ( Carvalho, 2006 ).…”