Hello and welcome to the zero to finals podcast.

My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be talking to you about tuberculosis.

And you can find written notes on this topic at zero to finals.com slash TB

or in the infectious diseases section of the second edition of the Zero to Finals Medicine book.

So let's get straight into it.

Tuberculosis, or TB, is an infectious disease caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis, which is a small

rod-shaped bacteria, or a bacillus.

The tuberculosis bacteria are very slow dividing and have high oxygen requirements,

which makes them difficult to culture in a lab.

The bacteria also has a waxy coat that makes gram staining ineffective.

The bacteria are resistant to the acids that are used in the staining procedure,

and this is described as being acid-fast, which makes them acid-fast basilai.

Special staining is required using the Zyle-Nielsen stain, which turns them bright red

against a blue background. Atom tip, a common exam question involves a patient with a chronic cough

and night sweats. Sputum culture grows acid-fast bacilli that stain red with Zal Nielsen staining.

These key words are worth remembering so that you can spot tuberculosis in your exams.

Multi-drug-resistant TB are strains that are resistant to more than one TB drug, for example, isinized and

rifampasin, which makes them difficult to treat. Let's talk about the disease course.

Tuberculosis is mostly spread by inhaling saliva droplets from infected people. Once in the body,

there are several possible outcomes.

Immediate clearance of the bacteria, which happens in most cases, primary active tuberculosis,

which is an active infection after exposure, latent tuberculosis, which is the presence of

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