Some Manifestations of Tuberculosis in Otorhinolaryngology - Case Series and a Short Review of Related Data from South-Eastern Europe.

Tuberculosis is a disease of global outreach that may affect the entire human body but is most commonly located in the lungs. Otorhinolaryngological manifestations of tuberculosis are rare, mostly occurring secondary to pulmonary disease but nevertheless represent significant diagnostic challenges. Nasopharyngeal tuberculosis is rare, representing around 1% of all upper air-way localizations and the most common presentation is in the form of adenoids.

New isoniazid derivatives with improved pharmaco-toxicological profile: Obtaining, characterization and biological evaluation.

Tuberculostatic drugs are the most common drug groups with global hepatotoxicity. Awareness of potentially severe hepatotoxic reactions is vital, as hepatic impairment can be a devastating and often fatal condition. The treatment problems that may arise, within this class of medicines, are mainly of two types: adverse reactions (collateral, toxic or hypersensitive reactions) and the initial or acquired resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to one or more antituberculosis drugs.

Detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis growth by direct microscopic observation has a lower cost, higher sensitivity and higher diagnostic value than liquid and solid media cultures.

Background: Culture is needed to confirm tuberculosis but results are generally obtained after several weeks.

Objectives: We compared a direct microscopic observation technique for detection of mycobacterial culture positivity (MODS) with the classic solid and MB/BacT cultures in terms of sensitivity, contamination rate, speed and cost on 488 samples.

Results: The sensitivity of the MODS technique--99,2% (162 positive samples) was higher than MB/BacT 78,4% (125 positive samples) and solid culture 69,6% (113 positive samples) P<0.

[Monitoring of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infections in Iaşi County in 2009].

Unlabelled: Tuberculosis is a major public health problem worldwide. Our study aimed to investigate epidemiological and demographic characteristics of tuberculosis infection and resistance to antituberculous drugs in Iasi County in 2009.

Material And Method: We have analysed the epidemiological parameters for 687 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis, new cases confirmed by microscopy and cultivation on Lowenstein Jensen.

Romanian anti-TB drugs resistance surveillance 2003-2004.

Unlabelled: Romania decided and initiated a DRS for anti-TB drugs at national level using the standardized methodology proposed by WHO and IUATLD. The DRS protocol was designed with technical assistance from WHO; the surveillance started in June 2003 and ended in June 2004. It was tested the susceptibility to the 4 first line anti-TB drugs: Isoniazide (H), Rifampicin (R), Streptomycin (S), Ethambutol (E).