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Pulmonary tuberculosis - Symptom

Alternative Names

TB; Tuberculosis - pulmonary

Symptoms:

The primary stage of TB usually doesn't cause symptoms. When symptoms of pulmonary TB occur, they may include:

Cough (usually cough up mucus)
Coughing up blood
Excessive sweating, especially at night
Fatigue
Fever
Unintentional weight loss

Other symptoms that may occur with this disease:

Breathing difficulty
Chest pain
Wheezing

Signs and tests:

Examination may show:

Clubbing of the fingers or toes (in people with advanced disease)
Enlarged or tender lymph nodes in the neck or other areas
Fluid around a lung (pleural effusion)
Unusual breath sounds (crackles)

Tests may include:

Biopsy of the affected tissue (rare)
Bronchoscopy
Chest CT scan
Chest x-ray
Interferon-gamma blood test such as the QFT-Gold test to test for TB infection
Sputum examination and cultures
Thoracentesis
Tuberculin skin test

Tuberculosis in the kidney

Tuberculosis in the lung

Tuberculosis, advanced - chest X-rays

Pulmonary nodule - front view chest X-ray

Pulmonary nodule, solitary - CT scan

Miliary tuberculosis

Tuberculosis of the lungs

Erythema nodosum associated with sarcoidosis

Respiratory system

Reviewed last on: 12/7/2010
David C. Dugdale, III, MD, Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine; Jatin M. Vyas, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Assistant in Medicine, Division of Infectious Disease, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc.

References

Iseman MD. Tuberculosis. In: Goldman L, Ausiello D, eds. Cecil Medicine. 23rd ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2007:chap 345.

Fitzgerald DW, Sterling TR, Haas DW. Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In: Mandell GL, Bennett JE, Dolan R, eds. Mandell, Douglas, and Bennett’s Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases. 7th ed. Orlando, FL: Saunders Elsevier; 2009:chap 250.

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