Among chronic nonspecific lung diseases (CNLD) at tuberculosis meet: chronic bronchitis; chronic pneumonia; bronchial asthma; bronchiectasis; lung abscess; lung emphysema. The importance of CNLD grows in the epidemiology of tuberculosis in connection with their high prevalence among the population, difficulties of their differential diagnostics with tuberculosis, complexity of therapy and rehabilitation of such patients, and with high invalidity and mortality.
Concerning combination of CNLD and lung tuberculosis two situations are distinguished:
- The patients have CNLD before tuberculosis develops, so tuberculosis developed on a background of mainly nonspecific changes in lungs;
- The patients, with CNLD which are due to tubercular process.
The patients have CNLD before tuberculosis develops. The often aggravations of CNLD can be as masks of early reactivation phase or super tuberculosis infection. Among the patients with the revealed secondary tuberculosis in combination with CNLD most frequently chronic bronchitis and chronic pneumonia come to light as background diseases. The chronic nonspecific process in lungs, being combined with other diseases at tuberculosis, complicates the current of the basic tubercular process and worsens its prognosis. At such tuberculosis patients the aggravation of CNLD, as a rule, repeats several times in one year, provoking and aggravating tubercular process. The patients, at which CNLD are secondary due to tubercular process.