A case report of persistent drug-sensitive pulmonary tuberculosis after treatment completion.

BACKGROUND: Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) has been found to persist within cavities in patients who have completed their anti-tuberculosis therapy. The clinical implications of Mtb persistence after therapy include recurrence of disease and destructive changes within the lungs. Data on residual changes in patients who completed anti-tuberculosis therapy are scarce. This case highlights the radiological and pathological changes that persist after anti-tuberculosis therapy completion and the importance of achieving sterilization of cavities in order to prevent these changes. CASE PRESENTATION: This is a case report of a 33 year old female with drug-sensitive pulmonary tuberculosis who despite successfully completing standard 6-month treatment had persistent changes in her lungs on radiological imaging. The patient underwent multiple adjunctive surgeries to resect cavitary lesions, which were culture positive for Mtb. After surgical treatment, the patient's chest radiographies improved, symptoms subsided, and she was given a definition of cure. CONCLUSIONS: Medical therapy alone, in the presence of severe cavitary lung lesions may not be able to achieve sterilizing cure in all cases. Cavities can not only cause reactivation but also drive inflammatory changes and subsequent lung damage leading to airflow obstruction, bronchiectasis, and fibrosis. Surgical removal of these foci of bacilli can be an effective adjunctive treatment necessary for a sterilizing cure and improved long term lung health.

Minimally-invasive approach via percutaneous femoral cannulation for the resection of intra-cardiac masses: a single center experience in the Middle-East.

BACKGROUND: Intra-cardiac masses are rare and challenging lesions with an overall incidence ranging of 0.02-0.2%. Minimally invasive approaches have been recently introduced for surgical resection of these lesions. Here, we evaluated our early experience using minimally invasive techniques in addressing intra-cardiac lesions. METHODOLOGY: This is a retrospective descriptive study conducted between April 2018 to December 2020. All patients were diagnosed with cardiac tumors and treated via a right mini-thoracotomy with cardiopulmonary bypass through femoral cannulation at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Jeddah. RESULTS: Myxoma was the most common pathology representing 46% of cases followed by thrombus (27%), leiomyoma (9%), lipoma (9%) and angiosarcoma (9%). All tumors were resected with negative margins. One patient was converted to open sternotomy. Tumor locations were in the right atrium, left atrium, and left ventricle in 5, 3, and 3 patients, respectively. The median ICU stay was 1.33 days. The median length of hospitalization was 5.7 days. There was no 30-days hospital mortality recorded in this cohort. CONCLUSION: Our early experience shows that minimally invasive resection can be performed safely and effectively for intra-cardiac masses. The minimally invasive approach using a mini-thoracotomy with percutaneous femoral cannulation can be an effective alternative in resecting intra-cardiac masses that achieves clear margin resection, quick post-operative recovery, and low rates of recurrence for benign lesions.

Adjunctive surgery versus medical treatment among patients with cavitary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.

OBJECTIVES: Surgical resection is recommended as adjunctive treatment for multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB) in certain scenarios; however, data are limited. We sought to evaluate the impact of surgery by comparing TB outcomes among patients with cavitary disease who received medical versus combined medical and surgical treatment. METHODS: A cohort of all patients with cavitary MDR or extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB treated in Tbilisi, Georgia, between 2008 and 2012. Patients meeting indications for surgery underwent adjunctive resection in addition to medical treatment. We compared TB outcomes (proportions achieving cure/complete) among patients who received adjunctive surgery to those who received medical treatment alone using an adjusted robust Poisson regression. RESULTS: Among 408 patients, 299 received medical treatment alone and 109 combined medical and surgical treatment. Patients in the non-surgical group were older and had higher rates of tobacco and alcohol use and bilateral disease compared to the surgical group. Patients in the surgical group had higher rates of XDR disease (28% vs 15%). Favourable outcomes were higher among the surgical versus non-surgical group cohort (76% vs 41%). After adjusting for multiple factors, the association between adjunctive resection and favourable outcome remained (adjusted risk ratio 1.6, 95% confidence interval 1.3-2.0); the relationship was also observed in secondary models that excluded patients with bilateral disease (contraindication for surgery) and patients receiving <6 months of treatment. Major postoperative complications occurred among 8 patients (7%) with no postoperative mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Adjunctive surgery is safe and may improve the effectiveness of treatment among select patients with cavitary MDR- and XDR-TB.