Unusual clinical presentation of thoracic tuberculosis: the need for a better knowledge of illness.

Background: Pulmonary tuberculosis (TB), a highly contagious infectious disease, is a significant public health problem all over the world and remains an important cause of preventable death in the adult population. Endobronchial TB is an unusual form of thoracic TB that may be complicated by tracheobronchial stenosis, and bronchoesophageal fistula formation is a very rare complication. Tubercular lymphadenitis can also lead to fistula formation through a process of caseum necrosis and opening of a fistula between the bronchus and oesophagus.

Cytological and histological diagnosis of lung cancer in Sardinia and Italy in the 1990s.

Background: Up to 30-50% of all lung cancer cases remain without cyto-histological characterisation. The aim of our study was to evaluate retrospectively the proportion of histological and/or cytological diagnosis in patients with lung cancer in Sardinia.

Methods: Data was gathered by consulting the hospital registers and case notes of individual patients released from hospital with a diagnosis of Lung Cancer at all medical centres throughout Sardinia.

Epidemiology of lung cancer in Sardinia, Italy, from 1980 to 1996.

Setting: Bronchial carcinoma is the most common cause of death among all malignant tumours. Despite a progressive increase, many Italian regions--ours included--do not have a Regional Cancer Registry.

Objective: To assess lung cancer incidence and mortality rates in Sardinia during the period 1980-1996.

Epidemiology of tuberculosis in Sardinia: a comparison of two data-gathering methods.

Setting: A complete surveillance system for tuberculosis should be able to guarantee constant updating of incidence and provide useful data on a variety of problems related to tuberculosis such as drug resistance, co-infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the geographic origin of patients, and mycobacterial species.

Objective And Design: To assess the completeness of the surveillance system currently operating in Sardinia, cases seen by all medical centres between 1987 and 1995 were compared with those notified to Sardinian Public Health Services for the same period.

Results: Each year, on average 39% of cases seen in Sardinia are notified; 646 (40%) of the 1591 patients notified during the study period were never seen by regional medical centres.

Etiology and therapy of community-acquired pneumonia.

The Authors report the data of a retrospective study performed on 520 patients admitted to the Institute of Respiratory Diseases, University of Sassari, Italy, for community acquired pneumonia (CAP) from 1980 to 1995. The aim of this study was to investigate: the frequency of risk factors and their impact on severity of pneumonia; the frequency of pathogens and their correlation with the severity of the illness; antibiotic treatments. One or more risk factors were found in 86% of patients, while 14% had none.