Tuberculosis prevalance in forensic autopsies

Tuberculosis Prevalance in Forensic AutopsiesSait ÖZSOY, MD.SUMMARYAccording to World Health Organization (WHO) reports; 1% of the world population has been infected with tuberculosis (TB) each year and 2 million people have died because of tuberculosis and it is estimated that 1 billion people will be infected with M.tuberculosis; 150 million of them going to have tuberculosis illness and 36 million TB patients will be died between 2002-2020 years.Turkey is one of the high risk countries for TB. Recently, the incidence for TB appears to increase in Turkey. According to data obtained from Turkish Health Ministry, approximately 35-40 thousand people have exposed to tuberculosis each year in our country, but only 17 thousand of them were diagnosed as tuberculosis and only six thousand of them were treated exactly.The risk for TB infection in forensic medicine field workers is high because of; (i) generally the lack of any medical history information for cases before autopsy, (ii) technical limitations of autopsy rooms, (iii) the aerosols with high risk for TB originated during using electrical saw instrument and (iv) organ dissection and (v) unfortunately insufficient biosafety measures that health workers have to follow.In conclusion, TB bacilli was not only cultured in Löwenstein Jensen (L-J) on tissue samples that were obtained from lungs of 3 of randomized 302 cases but it was also demonstrated granuloma with caseating necrosis in histopathological examination and ARB (+) bacilli (1+, 2+ and 2+, respectively) microscopically analysis in these tissue samples. In addition, granuloma with caseating necrosis was demonstrated in only lung tissue samples of two cases and both lung and liver tissue samples of one case. When the previous medical history of these 3 cases was evaluated, there were no information and any record about their tuberculosis. In this reason, we think that autopsy workers have to be careful about tuberculosis as well as other infectious diseases during their autopsy working.Key word: Autopsy, M. tuberculosis, tuberculosis, culture.