? Is it true that at one stage, tuberculosis or TB usually stops? How can you say that this affliction is classified as minimal or advanced?
It is generally believed that the course of the disease is as follows: Initial contact with the disease, whether this occurs in infancy, childhood or later in life, results in a lesion of the lung which is microscopic in size and usually produces no signs or symptoms whereby it may be diagnosed clinically. This primary tuberculosis focus is usually located near the pleura in the lower lobe or lower part of the upper lobe. From it, infection spreads by the lymphatics to the adjacent regional bronchopulmonary nodes. The primary focus of Gaseous pneumonia in the lung is called the Ghon tubercle, which usually heals by fibroids and calcification and can be demonstrated on x-ray films. Together with the regional adenitis (inflammation of a gland or glands) this constitutes the so-called primary complex.
This primary infection takes from four to six weeks to develop after the initial contact. This is the incubation period. The early infection is of no significance, clinically, at the time, but is of importance in that it sensitizes the body tissues to the tuberculoprotein as evidenced by a positive tuberculin reaction, so that a state of allergy or hypersensitiveness to the products of the bacteria exists. A positive tuberculin reaction does not necessarily mean active tuberculosis but simply that the individual has come in contact with the disease.
Usually the disease stops at this stage. However, in a relatively small number of individuals it may progress through liberation of living tubercle bacilli out of the primary focus or glands draining there from in the patient's own body (endogenous reinfection). This type of infection is fortunately rare and occurs mostly in infants and young children, giving rise to the serious miliary (like a millet seed in size) tuberculosis, tuberculous meningitis or tuberculous pneumonia.
A more common type is caused by infection outside the body through inhalation of living tabercle bacilli. This is the so-called adult. type of tuberculosis, with the lesion being located in the subapical region of the lung. (Subapical means near or beneath the apex). Progression from this may occur by caseation (cheeselike formation) and cavitation with the discharge or the cavity contents into a bronchus, whence, by inhalation, it spreads into the alveoli, either adjacent or distant. Thus both lungs may be involved.
According to the extent of lung- involvement, the disease is classified as minimal, moderately advanced, or advanced.
Definition of Medical Terms: Ex-anthem (Plural, exanthema), any eruption of the skin, accompanied by inflammation, e.g., measles, scarlatina, erysiplelas.
Exfoliation, the scaling off of dead tissues.