Tuberculosis
What is tuberculosis?
Tuberculosis is an infection with a highly variable incubation period. That primarily attacks in patients with poor nutritional status, with immunosuppression or chronic illnesses. Also viral infections such as measles and chicken pox, whooping cough, stress, smallpox vaccination, serious viral lung infections and the use of steroids can activate an old tuberculous focus.
What causes it? and How do you get it?
Most TB cases in humans are caused by M. Tuberculosis hominis and infection occurs as a result of inhalation of the organism. Which are in droplets of “Flugge,” which are expelled as a result of coughing or sneezing.
Poorly ventilated environments that prevent the dilution of the drops with microorganisms have greater potential to infect.Within the family of Mycobacterum, acid-resistant microorganisms are, to resist fading with strong acids and alcohol once they have been stained with carbolfuchsina. Not all acid-fast bacilli are mycobacteria.
The two major types of tubercle bacilli pathogenic for humans are M. Tuberculosis and M. hominis Tuberculosis bovis infections at a rate of 95% and 5% respectively.
Regarding the pathology, the primary lesion in the lung parenchyma occurs in more than 95% of cases as the primary means of inhalation, the exposure, but this injury can occur anywhere on the body.
In people who are first exposure to the bacillus tuberculosis presents an initial accumulation of polymorphonuclear cells followed by proliferation of epithelioid cells, which constitute the typical tuber. Giant cells appear and the whole area is surrounded by lymphocytes. Subsequently, the tubercle bacilli are carried by macrophages to the lymph nodes, when the focus of bronchopulmonary infection is the lung parenchyma, paratracheal when the focus is on the apex of the lung.
The primary lesion progresses, varying the period of 2 to 10 weeks. Time is developed hypersensitivity to the organism tissues. The lesion of primary pulmonary tuberculosis usually evolves towards healing and calcification caseificasión later. However, the injury may continue moving forward and cause pneumonia in the surrounding paréquima and spread to the pleura. The center can also be liquefied and poured into a cheesy bronchus, determining the formation of a cavity (cavitation primary) or new pneumonic areas. The blood spread occurs most often during the cheesemaking and may cause disseminated miliary lesions that can affect eyes, lungs, bones, kidney, brain, spleen or liver.
The regional lymph nodes in the primary lesion regressed tend to heal spontaneously, but the tubercle bacilli may persist for years.
Most of the complications of primary tuberculosis appear during the first year following the onset of infection, then they are rare and it is in the stage of adolescence or young adulthood when there is an adult-type TB or reinfection .
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