Obstructive airway disease in patients with treated pulmonary tuberculosis.

Abstract

Data were collected just before medically approved sanitorium discharge from 1,403 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis using a questionnaire, the hospital chart, a spirogram, and a rating of chest roentgenograms. Pulmonary tuberculosis was moderately advanced at discharge in 52 per cent of patients and far advanced in 21 per cent; 87.5 per cent of patients had no tubercle bacilli in their sputum cultures for more than two months before the study. Approximately 75 per cent of men and more than 40 per cent of women were current cigarette smokers. Airway obstruction, defined as diminution of forced expiratory volume in one second to less than 70 per cent of vital capacity, was found in 62 per cent of white men, 37 per cent of nonwhite men, 36 per cent of white women, and 17 per cent of nonwhite women. Cough, expectoration, severe dyspnea, and wheezing during most days and nights paralleled spirometric evidence of airway obstruction and were also more prevalent in whites than nonwhites. Airway obstruction wa...