At first, a doctor cannot always tell whether a person has tuberculosis. The disease's symptoms are fairly common. One is a persistent cough. People cough for all kinds of ordinary reasons, and they usually do not worry about it.
Doctors usually do not suspect anything is seriously wrong with a patient who has a bad cough. However, if the patient also complains about feeling tired all the time, losing appetite and weight, constantly running a fever, and having night sweats, that patient needs further medical tests.
Once doctors suspect that tuberculosis is a possibility, they may do different tests. One is called the Mantoux test, named after a French doctor named Charles Mantoux, who devised it over a hundred years ago.
The test takes only a second and is no more painful than a pinprick. It is an attempt to provoke a reaction from the body's immune system. A health care worker injects a tiny amount of fluid containing tuberculin, or dead tuberculosis cells, just under the skin of the forearm.
Two or three days later, the patient returns to the doctor's office. The doctor inspects the spot where the injection was made. If there is a reddish bump, the doctor measures it with a ruler. The wider the bump, the greater the possibility a patient has tuberculosis.
The Mantoux test is not 100 percent accurate. One out of five tests is false. Even if the test is accurate, it only tells doctors that a person carries tuberculosis germs. It cannot determine the form of the disease - latent or active. Therefore, doctors may also decide to take an X-ray of the lungs. If there are lesions, or holes, in the lungs, they may show up as bright spots on the X-ray.
Finally, if someone has a bad cough, the doctor will want to test the phlegm, or mucus, inside the lungs. Technicians might examine the phlegm under a microscope to detect tuberculosis bacteria. Or they may send a sample to a laboratory to test whether bacteria grow inside the phlegm.
This lab test is very accurate, but it also takes a lot of time. tuberculosis bacteria grow very slowly - as long as six weeks - before doctors can identify the infectious bacteria and make a diagnosis.
Diagnosing tuberculosis in children can be difficult. Even when children are infected, they may not have enough tuberculosis bacteria in their systems to show up on some of the laboratory tests. In the end, a doctor's most useful diagnosis strategy is talking to the patient. Knowing that someone has spent signficant time near a person with infectious tuberculosis can be the most valuable piece of medical information of all.
Active tuberculosis used to be a death sentence. Today, that is no longer true. Today the disease can be completely cured. A variety of medicines and treatments help a patient recover and lead a healthy life.
Our website is not responsible for the information contained by this article. Webworldarticles.com is a free articles resource thus practically any visitor can submit an article. However if you notice any copyrighted material, please contact us and we will remove the article(s) in discussion right away.
This article was sent to us by:
Victor Deems at
02032011
1. Carbon Monoxide Poisoning: causes and fast treatment
All articles in this directory are property of their respective authors. Additionally, read our Privacy Policy
© 2010 WebWorldarticles.com - All Rights Reserved. Partners: Gunblade Saga