Relationship Between Limitation of Daily Life and Prognosis in Patients with Sequelae of Tuberculosis Treated with Long Term Oxygen Therapy

: The sequelae of tuberculosis (TBC) sometimes causes severe restrictive lung disorders. In Japan, lung tuberculosis was pandemic up to the 1950s, with TBC being a major underlying disease of chronic respiratory failure and cor pulmonale. Until the end of 1991, we encountered 95 cases of Home Oxygen Therapy (HOT) in Ogaki area, 30 of which were patients with TBC. To clarify factors affecting the prognosis of these patients, we examined background factors, directing special attention to daily activities. In this study, 10 inactive patients (Group A) whose daily activity was limited to indoors and 10 control patients (Group B) whose age, vital capacity and arterial PO2 were equal to inactive patients, from the 30 TBC cases were used. A comparison was made of the prognoses. Among the patients, activity was closely related to dyspnea grade and arterial PCO2. Group A patients showed more marked dyspnea and lower arterial PCO2 than those of group B patients. Percentage home stay and cumulative survival rates of Group A patients (percentage home stay, 59.2 +/- 38.7% and 3 year survival, 26.3%) were significantly less than those of Group B patients (91.0 +/- 16.4% and 87.5%, p < 0.05, respectively). Among chronic pulmonary emphysema patients treated with HOT, no significant relation between activity and prognosis could be found, when factors of age, arterial PO2 and forced expiratory volume in 1 sec were excluded. There would thus appear to be a close relation between activity and prognosis in TBC patients specific for underlying disease.