Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are emerging pathogens that affect both immunocompromised and immunocompetent patients. The incidence and prevalence of NTM lung disease are increasing worldwide and rapidly becoming a major public health problem. For the diagnosis of NTM lung disease, patients suspected to have NTM lung disease are required to meet all clinical and microbiologic criteria. The development of molecular methods allows the characterization of new species and NTM identification at a subspecies level. Even after the identification of NTM species from respiratory specimens, clinicians should consider the clinical significance of such findings. Besides the limited options, treatment is lengthy and varies by species, and therefore a challenge. Treatment may be complicated by potential toxicity with discouraging outcomes. The decision to start treatment for NTM lung disease is not easy and requires careful individualized analysis of risks and benefits. Clinicians should be alert to those unique aspects of NTM lung disease concerning diagnosis with advanced molecular methods and treatment with limited options. Current recommendations and recent advances for diagnosis and treatment of NTM lung disease are summarized in this article.

Pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) persists as a great public health problem in Korea. Increases in the overall age of the population and the rise of drug-resistant TB have reinforced the need for rapid diagnostic improvements and new modalities to detect TB and drug-resistant TB, as well as to improve TB control. Standard guidelines and recent advances for diagnosing pulmonary TB are summarized in this article. An early and accurate diagnosis of pulmonary TB should be established using chest X-ray, sputum microscopy, culture in both liquid and solid media, and nucleic acid amplification. Chest computed tomography, histopathological examination of biopsy samples, and new molecular diagnostic tests can be used for earlier and improved diagnoses, especially in patients with smear-negative pulmonary TB or clinically-diagnosed TB and drug-resistant TB.

No abstract

Iterative reconstruction allows ultra-low-dose CT and affords acceptable image quality, allowing size measurements of solid pulmonary nodules to be made.