[Tuberculosis as a cause of death in patients treated in the institute of tuberculosis in 1976-1991].

This study aimed at assessing the reasons why tuberculosis-which can be successfully treated today-is still the cause of death in some patients treated at the Institute of Tuberculosis in the last 15 years. The material consisted of clinical documentation and the results of autopsy of 30 patients who died of tuberculosis between 1976-1991. It was found that 19 out of 30 patients were not treated with antituberculous drugs or were treated only during few days because tuberculosis was diagnosed too late (in 15 patients after death). In 6 patients the treatment failed due to side effects of drugs and in 5 immunosuppressed patients, disease progressed despite the treatment. Difficulties in tuberculosis diagnosis were caused by atypical appearance of the disease in the chest X-ray (localization in the middle and lower lobes in 15 cases, absence of cavities in 22 cases) and in the extrapulmonary regions (11 cases). The main obstacle was the failure to cultivate tubercle bacilli from numerous specimens of the sputum in 10 out of 23 patients in whom the cultures were done.