EXACERBATION OF TUBERCULOSIS DURING TREATMENT WITH CORTISONE

Abstract

Observations of the unfavorable effects of corticotropin (ACTH) and cortisone on tuberculosis are multiplying. Guinea pigs and rats taking these drugs have succumbed to doses of tubercle bacilli found nonlethal in controls.¹ Pulmonary tuberculosis in humans has also disseminated during steroid administration.² REPORT OF A CASE S. M., a 37-year-old Negro woman, was seen in the arthritis clinic of Cook County Hospital in July, 1950, because of rheumatoid arthritis of five years' duration. The arthritis, involving all four extremities, was so severe that she was barely able to walk with help. The laboratory tests revealed the presence of hypochromic anemia and an accelerated erythrocyte sedimentation rate, findings commonly encountered in severe rheumatoid arthritis. She had no symptoms referable to the respiratory tract nor abnormal physical findings in the lungs. During case-finding studies she had previously had x-ray studies of her lungs. During two admissions to another hospital for