WHAT IS TB?

Tuberculosis (often called TB) is an infectious disease that usually attacks the lungs, but can attack almost any part of the body. Tuberculosis is spread from person to person through the air.

When people with TB in their lungs or throat cough, laugh, sneeze, sing, or even talk, the germs that cause TB may be spread into the air. If another person breathes in these germs there is a chance that they will become infected with tuberculosis.  Repeated contact is usually required for infection.

It is important to understand that there is a difference between being infected with TB and having TB disease. Someone who is infected with TB has the TB germs, or bacteria, in their body. The body's defenses are protecting them from the germs and they are not sick. This is referred to as latent TBI.

Someone with TB disease is sick and can spread the disease to other people. A person with TB disease needs to see a doctor as soon as possible. This is referred to as active TBII.

It is not easy to become infected with tuberculosis. Usually a person has to be close to someone with TB disease for a long period of time. TB is usually spread between family members, close friends, and people who work or live together. TB is spread most easily in closed spaces over a long period of time. However, transmission in an airplane, although rare, has been documented.

Even if someone becomes infected with tuberculosis, that does not mean they will get TB disease. Most people who become infected do not develop TB disease because their body's defenses protect them. Most active cases of TB disease result from activating old infection in people with impaired immune systems.

WHO GETS IT?

Anyone can get TB. However, some groups are at higher risk to get active TB disease. The groups that are at high risk include:

• People with HIV infection (the AIDS virus) 
• People in close contact with those known to be infectious with TB 
• People with medical conditions that make the body less able to protect itself from disease (for example: diabetes, the dust disease silicosis, or people undergoing treatment with drugs that can suppress the immune system, such as long-term use of corticosteroids) 
• Foreign-born people from countries with high TB rates 
• Some racial or ethnic minorities 
• People who work in or are residents of long-term care facilities (nursing homes, prisons, some hospitals) 
• Health care workers and others such as prison guards 
• People who are malnourished 
• Alcoholics, IV drug users and people who are homeless

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF TB?

A person with TB infection will have no symptoms. A person with TB disease may have any, all or none of the following symptoms:

• A cough that will not go away 
• Feeling tired all the time 
• Weight loss 
• Loss of appetite 
• Fever 
• Coughing up blood 
• Night sweats

These symptoms can also occur with other diseases so it is important to see a doctor and to let the doctor determine if you have TB.  It is also important to remember that a person with TB disease may feel perfectly healthy or may only have a cough from time to time. If you think you have been exposed to TB, get a TB skin test.

HOW DOES TB DISEASE DEVELOP?

There are two possible ways a person can become sick with TB disease:

The first applies to a person who may have been infected with TB for years and has been perfectly healthy. The time may come when this person suffers a change in health. The cause of this change in health may be another disease like AIDS or diabetes. Or it may be drug or alcohol abuse or a lack of health care because of homelessness.

Whatever the cause, when the body's ability to protect itself is compromised, TB infection can become active TB disease. In this way, a person may become sick with TB disease months or even years after they first breathed in the TB germs.

The other way TB disease develops happens much more quickly. Sometimes when a person first breathes in the TB germs the body is unable to protect itself against the disease. The germs then develop into active TB disease within weeks.

WHAT IS THE TB SKIN TEST?

The TB skin test is a way to find out if a person has TB infection. Although there is more than one TB skin test, the preferred method of testing is to use the Mantoux test.

For this test, a small amount of testing material is placed just below the top layers of skin, usually on the arm. Two to three days later a health care worker checks the arm to see if a bump has developed and measures the size of the bump. The significance of the size of the bump is determined in conjunction with risk factors for TB.

Once the doctor knows that a person has TB infection he or she will want to determine if the person has TB disease. This is done by using several other tests including a chest X-ray and a test of a person's mucus (the material that is sometimes coughed up from the lungs).

Q: Should you get a skin test each year to check on TB?

A: Only if you are at high risk for getting or transmitting TB or your jobs request it.

The advice for most people is to get a tuberculin test if you have symptoms or if you are living in close contact or have otherwise been in close contact with someone who recently came down with activeTB disease. (Some people get skin tests because of their jobs, in a school or hospital, for example, to make sure they have not contracted TB and will not infect others if they have TB).

If you fall into one or more of the high-risk categories for TB noted earlier, for example, if you are HIV-positive, never had a skin test before, or there is no record of the last result, you should be tested.

If you're not sure, ask your doctor. TB can be prevented, even if you are at risk.

WHAT IS THE TREATMENT FOR TB?

Treatment for TB depends on whether a person has active TB disease or only TB infection.

A person who has become infected with TB, but does not have active TB disease, may be given preventive therapy. Preventive therapy aims to kill germs that are not doing any damage right now, but could so do.

If a doctor decides a person should receive preventive therapy, the usual prescription is a daily dose of isoniazid (also called "INH"); an inexpensive TB medicine. The person takes INH for nine months (up to a year for some patients), with periodic checkups to make sure the medicine is being taken as prescribed.

What if the person has active TB disease? Then treatment is needed.

Years ago a patient with TB disease was placed in a special hospital for months, maybe even years, and would often have surgery. Today, TB can be treated with very effective drugs.

Often the patient will only have to stay a short time in the hospital and can then continue taking medication at home. Sometimes the patient will not have to stay in the hospital at all. After a few weeks a person can probably even return to normal activities and not have to worry about infecting others.

The patient usually gets a combination of several drugs (most frequently INH plus two to three others including rifampin, pyrazinamide and ethambutol). The patient will probably begin to feel better only a few weeks after starting to take the drugs.

It is very important, however, that the patient continue to take the medicine correctly for the full length of treatment. If the medicine is taken incorrectly or stopped the patient may become sick again and will be able to infect others with TB. As a result, public health authorities recommend Directly Observed Therapy (DOT), in which a health care worker insures that the patient takes his/her medicine.

If the medicine is taken incorrectly and the patient becomes sick with TB a second time, the TB may be harder to treat because it has become drug resistant. This means that the TB germs in the body are unaffected by some drugs used to treat TB.

Multi-drug resistant TB is very dangerous, so patients should be sure that they take all of their medicine correctly.

Regular checkups are needed to see how treatment is progressing. Sometimes the drugs used to treat TB can cause side effects. It is important both for people undergoing preventive therapy and people being treated for TB disease to immediately let a doctor know if they begin having any unusual symptoms.

Source: American Lung Association Web site

For more information - http://www.cdcnpin.org/scripts/tb/index.asp.