According to American College of Physicians Medical Knowledge Self-Assessment Program, one third of the world's population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes tuberculosis. The majority of people with tuberculosis have a latent form, and never become sick. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, about ten percent of latent infections, if untreated, will develop active tuberculosis, become sick and spread the disease by coughing, sneezing or speaking. Symptoms of tuberculosis may be nonspecific, or specific to lungs.
Persistent Cough
According to TB Alert, a cough lasting more than three weeks is the most common symptom of tuberculosis. This may start as a dry irritating, nonproductive cough similar to that in any chest infection. The cough due to tuberculosis will continue for weeks or months, getting progressively worse and becoming persistent and hacking. The cough may produce a small amount of yellow or green sputum in the morning.
Unexplained Weight Loss
Tuberculosis used to be called "consumption," a term that describes how the illness wastes away or consumes its victims. Loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting are common symptoms of tuberculosis. Initially weight loss can be slow, but a person with active tuberculosis can experience significant unintentional weight loss in several months.
Night Sweats
According to The Merck Manual, tuberculosis is the classic infection associated with night sweats. There are other infections associated with night sweats and many other causes. Low grade and intermittent fever that accompanies tuberculosis often occur at night causing the patient to sweat profusely, so that it may be necessary to change the bed clothes in the middle of the night.
Coughing Up Blood
According to the book "Office Practice of Medicine," coughing up blood, also called "hemoptysis," always reflects a pathologic process within the respiratory tract. About fifty years ago, hemoptysis was considered synonymous with pulmonary tuberculosis. Doctors generally order a chest x-ray when patients are coughing up blood. In a patient with tuberculosis, a chest x-ray and sputum smears to test for the acid-fast bacilli that cause tuberculosis, will help doctors diagnose the disease. With advanced tuberculosis, cavities form in the lungs. A blood vessel located in the wall of a cavity may erode, causing massive hemoptysis, which is defined as expectorating between 200 ml and 600 ml of blood within 24 hours.
References
- Johns Hopkins Medicine: Tuberculosis
- American College of Physicians: MKSAP 13; Infectious Disease Medicine; 2003.
- TB Alert: About Tuberculosis
- Merck Manual: Tuberculosis
- "Office Practice of Medicine"; William T. Branch, Jr.; 2003.
