Disease
Tuberculosis
Airborne lung syndrome with latent and active forms
too-ber-kyoo-LOH-sis
High-yield clue
Chronic cough, night sweats, and weight loss with airborne person-to-person spread is the classic active-TB study picture.
Overview
A chronic infectious syndrome caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, studied for its distinction between contained latent infection and contagious active disease. It matters because it remains a leading global cause of infectious death and illustrates cell-mediated immune containment.
Classification
- Infectious respiratory syndrome
- Latent vs active forms
- Primary vs reactivation
- Pulmonary and extrapulmonary patterns
Lab & identification clues
- Acid-fast organisms on sputum vocabulary
- Ghon complex and caseating granuloma terms
- Latent infection detected by immune-response tests (TST/IGRA) vocabulary
- Upper-lobe cavitary pattern description
Associations
- Airborne droplet-nuclei transmission
- Reactivation risk with HIV and immunosuppression
- Night sweats, hemoptysis, and cachexia presentation vocabulary
- Global public-health and directly-observed-therapy framing
Commonly confused with
- Community-acquired pneumonia
- Lung malignancy on imaging
Your notes
Original student-study summary. Sources checked: OpenStax Microbiology 2e, NCBI Bookshelf Medical Microbiology, and CDC topic pages where applicable; reviewed 2026-06. Educational only; no diagnosis, treatment, dosing, or specimen-handling guidance.