Table 1.

Clinical characteristics and test results of the seven active tuberculosis cases

	Case 1	Case 2	Case 3	Case 4	Case 5	Case 6	Case 7
Age (years)	65	54	71	27	2	1.5	68
Sex	M	M	F	F	M	M	M
Clinical features	Swinging pyrexia and night sweats	Dyspnoea, constrictive pericarditis	Arthralgia, pyrexia and back pain	Weight loss, pyrexia and cough	Weight loss, pyrexia and cough	Productive cough and weight loss	Cough and haemoptysis
Radiology	Bilateral pleural effusions and ascites	Pericardial thickening and pulmonary miliary nodules on HRCTa	Para-aortic lymphadenopathy and enlarged right hilum on HRCTa	Bilateral nodular opacities in upper lobes. Nodular lesions and tree in bud on HRCTa	Hilar lymphadenopathy	Right hilar node enlargement and parenchymal upper lobe infiltrate	Two small nodules in right upper lung
Microbiology and histology	Sputum, pleural and ascitic fluid: ZNb stain and culture negative. Pleural and ascitic fluid: lymphocytic exudates	Pericardial biopsy: granuloma. BALc: ZN stain and culture negative	No samples obtained; biopsy refused	Sputum and BALc: ZNb stain and culture negative	Gastric washings: ZNb stain negative, culture positive	Gastric washings: culture positive	Lung biopsy: granulomas with central necrosis
Basis for final diagnosis of TB	Clinical picture, response to therapy	Clinical and radiological picture, response to therapy	Clinical and radiological picture, response to therapy	Clinical and radiological picture, response to therapy	Culture confirmed	Culture confirmed	Positive nuclei acid amplification on tissue sample from lung
Site of disease	Pleural effusion + ascites	Pulmonary (miliary) + pericardial	Para-aortic lymph nodes	Pulmonary	Pulmonary	Pulmonary	Pulmonary
BCG vaccination status	BCG vaccinated	Unvaccinated	BCG vaccinated	Unvaccinated	Unvaccinated	Unvaccinated	Unvaccinated
Mantoux result	0 mm	0 mm	Heaf grade 4	10 mm	25 mm	9 mm	0 mm
ELISpot Resultsd	Positive	Positive	Positive	Positive	Positive	Positive	Positive

^aHigh resolution computerised tomography.

^bZiel Nielson.

^cBronchioalveolar lavage.

^dDuplicate pairs of wells were scored positive if they contained a mean of at least five spot-forming cells more than the mean of the negative control wells, and, in addition, this number was at least twice the mean of the negative control wells.