[Recent aspects of pulmonary tuberculosis in thoracic surgery]

Pulmonary tuberculosis--although appreciable reduced as regards number of cases--is still far from being wiped out and even today constitutes a real problem in the field of thoracico-pulmonary surgical pathology. Infection with Koch's bacillus can from this point of view arise basically according to two procedures: a) as superimposed element--unexpected guest--on a pulmonary disease of surgical interest, sometimes being mistaken for it (e.g. a tubercular inflammation of slow evolution mistaken for a cancer of the lung) or b) taking the form of pulmonary relics of an earlier and apparently extinguished Kochian infection, the starting point of an always possible revival of the infection during the postoperative period. In the former case the so-called attack therapy must be adopted without delay in accordance with well tested doses and schedules; in the latter case by means of a chemoprophylaxis, carried out in with rifampicin (600/1200 mg/day) in the cases reported and also continued in the postoperative period.