BACKGROUND The report of the fifth national tuberculosis (TB) epidemiological survey in P. R. China, 2010, roughly showed that pulmonary TB (PTB) prevalence was higher in western China than in central and eastern China. However, accurately estimating the continuous spatial variations of PTB prevalence and clearly understanding factors impacting on spatial variations of PTB prevalence are import...

AIM To determine whether QuantiFERON®-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT) can contribute to the diagnosis of active tuberculosis (TB) in children in a high-burden setting and to assess the performance of QFT and tuberculin skin test (TST) in a prospective cohort of TB suspect children compared to adults with confirmed TB in Tanzania. METHODS Sensitivity and specificity of QFT and TST for diagnosing active ...

Antananarivo, the capital city of Madagascar, has an endemic focus of tuberculosis (TB). We specifically studied patients with extrapulmonary TB (EPTB) and grouped patients according to infected body site. The strains were characterized by IS6110 fingerprinting and compared with those isolated from patients with pulmonary TB (PTB) during the same period in order to determine the possible associ...

BACKGROUND Recent population prevalence estimates of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) are not available for several areas in India. We conducted a field-based population survey at a north Indian district to estimate point prevalence of bacteriologically positive PTB. METHODS A stratified cluster sampling design was used to conduct the survey in both urban and rural areas within the district. All ...

A 14-year-old male patient presented with cyanosis and tiredness. The patient had undergone a Glenn procedure at age 12 following the echocardiographic determination of a double inlet left ventricle, ventriculoarterial discordance, moderate valvular-subvalvular pulmonary artery stenosis, non-restrictive inlet ventricular septal defect and right ventricle hypoplasia; his oxygen saturation was 70...

We present the case of a patient who underwent a Nikaidoh procedure for total correction of transposition of the great arteries (TGA), ventricular septal defect (VSD), and pulmonary stenosis (PS). A young girl, 2 years and 4 months of age, weighing 3400 g at birth, was diagnosed with TGA, VSD, patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), and left ventricular outflow tract obstruction (LVOTO), with valvular ...

Pulmonary fibrosis is a highly heterogeneous and lethal pathological process with limited therapeutic options. Although research on the pathogenesis of pulmonary fibrosis has frequently focused on the mechanisms that regulate the proliferation, activation, and differentiation of collagen-secreting myofibroblasts, recent studies have identified new pathogenic mechanisms that are critically invol...

Only a small fraction of individuals exposed to Mycobacterium tuberculosis develop clinical tuberculosis (TB). Over the past century, epidemiological studies have shown that human genetic factors contribute significantly to this interindividual variability, and molecular progress has been made over the past decade for at least two of the three key TB-related phenotypes: (i) a major locus contro...

BACKGROUND The Tuberculosis (TB) control program in Bangladesh is still unsatisfactory due to insufficient knowledge and stigma about TB. Patients with low knowledge may be at higher risk of experiencing delays in diagnosis and appropriate treatment. OBJECTIVES The aims of this study were to identify the knowledge levels of TB and investigate the factors associated with knowledge level among ...

In 19 asthmatic children, aged 2-6 years, the effect of six weeks' treatment with inhaled budesonide or placebo on functional residual capacity (FRC--helium dilution) and bronchodilator responsiveness was assessed in a double blind, randomised crossover trial. FRC was increased in most children at the start of treatment. Treatment with budesonide was associated with a reduction in FRC by compar...