Tuberculosis

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A complete medical evaluation for TB includes a medical history, a physical examination, a test for TB infection, a chest radiograph, and appropriate bacteriologic or histologic examinations.
The signs and symptoms of pulmonary TB may include the following:

• Cough (duration of > 3 weeks)
• Chest pain
• Hemoptysis
• Systemic signs and symptoms
  • Fever
  • Chills
  • Night sweats
  • Appetite loss
  • Weight loss
  • Easy fatigability

• It is important to ask persons suspected of having TB about their history of TB exposure, infection, or disease. Clinicians may also contact the local health department for information about whether a patient has received TB treatment in the past.
• If the treatment regimen was inadequate or if the patient did not adhere to therapy, TB may recur and may be drug resistant. It is also important to consider demographic factors that may increase the patient’s risk for exposure to TB or to drug-resistant TB disease. In addition, clinicians should determine whether the patient has medical conditions, especially human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, that increase the risk for latent TB infection to progress to TB disease. All patients who do not know their current HIV status should be referred for HIV counseling and testing.

A physical examination is an essential part of the evaluation of any patient. It cannot be used to confirm or rule out TB, but it can provide valuable information about the patient’s overall condition and other factors that may affect how TB is treated. see diagnosis

published with kind permission of CDC Center for Disease Control http://www.cdc.gov

Atypical TB