Bacteriological Studies of Resected Pulmonary Tuberculosis Lesions

¹ Bacteriologist, Veterans Administration Hospital, The Naval Research Unit, Great Lakes, Illinois.
² Laboratory Technician, Veterans Administration Hospital.

1. Sixty-two per cent of the cases included in this study had positive cultures for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Solid lesions gave 28 per cent, while cavitary lesions gave 66 per cent of the total positives obtained. Length of treatment had little effect on the number of positive cultures obtained on resection, this being affected somewhat by the nonsusceptible and persistent cavitary cases which were resected.

2. Chemotherapeutic susceptibility results in tuberculosis may vary slightly in the same individual, depending upon the type of lesion and source from which the tubercle organisms are obtained, as shown by our data comparing sputa or gastrics (preoperative) and resected material studied. These were noted where nonsusceptible (intermediate) variants occurred and, therefore, should not deter clinical interpretations of susceptibility findings.