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What is tuberculosis?

How do you get tuberculosis?

What are the symptoms of tuberculosis?

Who is at risk for getting tuberculosis?

How is tuberculosis diagnosed?

What is the treatment for tuberculosis disease?

Where can I buy home test kits for contributing factors of this condition?

What is tuberculosis? (top)

Tuberculosis, also called TB, is an infection caused by a bacteria (a germ). Tuberculosis usually affects the lungs, but it can spread to the kidneys, bones, spine, brain and other parts of the body.

How do you get tuberculosis? (top)

Tuberculosis is spread from person to person through the air.

When people with TB in their lungs or throat cough, laugh, sneeze, sing, or even talk, the germs that cause TB may be spread into the air. If another person breathes in these germs there is a chance that they will become infected with tuberculosis. Repeated contact is usually required for infection.

It is important to understand that there is a difference between being infected with TB and having TB disease. Someone who is infected with TB has the TB germs, or bacteria, in their body. The body's defenses are protecting them from the germs and they are not sick.

Someone with TB disease is sick and can spread the disease to other people. A person with TB disease needs to see a doctor as soon as possible.

It is not easy to become infected with tuberculosis. Usually a person has to be close to someone with TB disease for a long period of time. TB is usually spread between family members, close friends, and people who work or live together. TB is spread most easily in closed spaces over a long period of time. However, transmission in an airplane, although rare, has been documented.

Even if someone becomes infected with tuberculosis, that does not mean they will get TB disease. Most people who become infected do not develop TB disease because their body's defenses protect them. Most active cases of TB disease result from activating old infection in people with impaired immune systems.

What are the symptoms of tuberculosis? (top)

A person with tuberculosis infection may not have any symptoms.

A person with tuberculosis disease may have any, all or none of the following symptoms:

• A cough that will not go away

• Feeling tired all the time

• Weight loss

• Loss of appetite

• Fever

• Coughing up blood

• Night sweats

These symptoms can also occur with other types of lung disease so it is important to see a doctor and to let the doctor determine if you have tuberculosis. 

Who is at risk for getting tuberculosis? (top)

• People with HIV infection (the AIDS virus)

• People in close contact with those known to be infectious with Tuberculosis

• People with medical conditions that make the body less able to protect itself from disease (for example: diabetes, or people undergoing treatment with drugs that can suppress the immune system)

• Foreign-born people from countries with high tuberculosis rates

• Some racial or ethnic minorities

• People who work in or are residents of long-term care facilities (nursing homes, prisons, some hospitals)

• Health care workers and others such as prison guards

• People who are mal-nourished

• Alcoholics, IV drug users and people who are homeless

How is tuberculosis diagnosed? (top)

Tuberculosis infection is diagnosed by a skin test. Although there is more than one TB skin test, the preferred method of testing is to use the Mantoux test.3

For this test, a small amount of testing material is placed just below the top layers of skin, usually on the arm. Two to three days later a health care worker checks the arm to see if a bump has developed and measures the size of the bump. The significance of the size of the bump is determined in conjunction with risk factors for tuberculosis.

Once the doctor knows that a person has tuberculosis infection he or she will want to determine if the person has tuberculosis disease. This is done by using several other tests including a chest X-ray and a test of a person's mucus (the material that is sometimes coughed up from the lungs).

The advice for most people is to get a tuberculin test if you have symptoms or if you are living in close contact or have otherwise been in close contact with someone who recently came down with tuberculosis disease. (Some people get skin tests because of their jobs, in a school or hospital, for example, to make sure they have not contracted tuberculosis and will not infect others if they have tuberculosis).

If you fall into one or more of the high-risk categories for tuberculosis noted earlier, for example, if you are HIV-positive, never had a skin test before, or there is no record of the last result, you should be tested.

If you're not sure, ask your doctor. tuberculosis can be prevented, even if you are at risk.

What is the treatment for tuberculosis disease? (top)

If you have active Tuberculosis disease, you will need to take several different medicines. This is because there are many bacteria to be killed. Taking several medicines will do a better job of killing all of the bacteria and preventing them from becoming resistant to the medicines.

The most common medicines used to cure tuberculosis are

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