Tuberculosis is a widespread disease caused by Koch chopsticks (mycobacterium tuberculosis). In most cases, the pathology affects the lungs, but other organs and systems are also often affected: kidneys, intestines, skin, nervous system, bone tissue, etc. There are two main forms of the disease: open and closed tuberculosis. Let us consider in more detail what are the features of the closed form of tuberculosis, is it contagious, and what are its manifestations.
The closed form of a tuberculosis - how much or as far as it is dangerous?
Studies show that Koch chopsticks infected about a third of the world's population, but only 5-10% develop an active form of tuberculosis. In other cases, people are carriers of infection, i.e. they have a closed, inactive form of tuberculosis. The main path of infection with mycobacteria is aerogenic, in which a person's sputum, containing an infection, gets into the lungs of a person when breathing in with the air.
With closed tuberculosis, in most cases, pathological changes in the lungs are small, limited foci, in which an inflammatory process takes place, not accompanied by destruction of lung tissue, as in open tuberculosis . Also, areas of tuberculously altered tissue in some patients may be surrounded by a thick layer of protective cells or connective tissue.
Such pathological processes are dangerous because at any time they can take an open form, in which Koch's rods become active, the inflammation passes to other areas and proceeds with the destruction of cells. This can occur with a weakening of the body's immune defenses and lack of treatment.
Symptoms of a closed form of tuberculosis
This form of the disease has mild manifestations. For example, a patient can simply observe a constant weakness , feel fatigued. Sometimes, with deep inspiration, such patients have mild chest pain, sweating at night and fever. Signs of a closed form of tuberculosis can be detected only by means of an X-ray diagnosis or a skin tuberculin test.
Is the closed form of tuberculosis dangerous for others?
Patients with a closed form of tuberculosis do not need isolation, contacts with healthy people do not carry the threat of infection. This is the main difference between this form of the disease and the open one - when coughing, sneezing, talking, patients with a closed form of tuberculosis are not isolated into the external environment of the causative agents of the infection.
However, do not forget that the disease can go unnoticed in a dangerous form, so people who have been in contact with such people for a long time are advised to undergo diagnostic examinations.