And it deduces South Florida Bulls remains a usf bulls tickets details danger in the United States, especially in states such as California, with large numbers of immigrants from countries where the disease is endemic (Glasberg, though a U. S. citizen, was raised in Chile. )Last year 2,903 of the 14,093 cases in the U. S. were reported in this state -- more than three-quarters of them among foreign natives. Tuberculosis bacteria can remain dormant for years, then begin multiplying, particularly if the host's immune system is weakened The disease still is generally treatable if caught early. But if diagnosis is delayed, it can permanently harm or kill its victims and spread to others. "Delayed diagnosis is a concern that obsesses people in TB control," said Dr. Kenneth Castro, director of the division of tuberculosis elimination at the U. S.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "There are many outstanding physicians who don't see it anymore and therefore lose proficiency to promptly diagnose and treat it. "Though government officials do not track how often TB is missed or misdiagnosed, some research and high-profile cases have fueled experts' concerns. A study of 158 patients in Maryland, published last year in the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, showed 45% to be undiagnosed 30 days after they first contacted a doctor, with 16% remaining so 90 days after. Some health agencies have mobilized: The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute has been helping to fund a TB curriculum in medical and professional schools south florida bulls basketball South Florida Bulls - gousfbulls . The CDC has sponsored four national centers for doctors to call to request diagnostic help when TB is suspected usf bulls gear . And the California Department of Health Services is participating in a national study of delays in diagnosis of foreign-born TB patients. Two initially misdiagnosed cases recently grabbed the attention of top health officials because of who was infected: the spouses of CDC researchers. In 2004, Dr south florida basketball . Claudia Lacson, who was pregnant with her first child, fell into a coma 10 days after she was admitted to an Atlanta hospital complaining of severe headaches and a persistent fever. Lacson, a physician married to a CDC behavioral scientist, initially went to the emergency room a week before she was admitted; doctors sent her home with sinus medication university of south florida football . Days before she fell into the coma, doctors had been treating her for bacterial meningitis, even though they were reminded that Lacson had tested positive for exposure to tuberculosis in the past, said her husband, Romel. Lacson was a native of Bogota, Colombia, and had treated many TB patients while she trained as a physician there. And Lacson herself suspected TB was causing her illness, underlining "tuberculosis meningitis" in an internal medicine textbook from her hospital bed, her husband said. But by the time doctors began TB treatment, it was too late.

She died July 31, 2004, at 38, several weeks after she gave birth to a daughter, who also did not survive. "If they treated her . . south florida bulls football . from the beginning with TB medication, I do believe she would be alive today," said Romel Lacson, who worked in the CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the time and now promotes TB awareness at the University of South Carolina usf bulls apparel . "Of course I do. "Castro, the TB division head, said the death was a sad example of what happens when such a case goes unrecognized too long. "You have a young woman that died of a curable disease university of south florida basketball . Shame on us, collectively," he said. Castro said he was thinking about Lacson when he was called for advice by doctors in another case involving a CDC spouse several months later university of south florida football tickets . It was the husband of Janet Collins, a behavioral scientist who was acting director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention. Just after Thanksgiving 2004, Collins took her husband, Richard Gannon, to an Atlanta emergency room. Gannon, then 53, was suffering from headache and nausea; he had become disoriented and confused Doctors were perplexed. They suspected a brain tumor, but Gannon was not responding to treatment, Collins said. Fortunately for the patient, one of the doctors called Castro, who suspected TB and ordered a lab test. "They just didn't know if they caught it soon enough," Collins said. "It was extraordinary. "If "the CDC's doctors hadn't gotten involved, I would have died," said Gannon, who had tested positive for TB exposure as a child after his father was infected. Diagnosing TB can be an involved process.

The familiar skin test -- required by schools and some employers -- determines only whether a patient has a latent TB infection, not whether there is active, infectious disease The results are not foolproof south florida bulls tickets . A follow-up chest X-ray and a laboratory culture can help pin down the diagnosis, and the doctor can try TB drug therapy to see if the patient responds, as in Glasberg's case. TB isn't necessarily restricted to the lungs, nor does it always result in the coughing that is widely considered a telltale sign southern florida bulls . The bacteria can be harbored in the gastrointestinal tract, the nervous system and other places in the body South Florida Bulls . Reichman, the New Jersey-based expert, recalled the case of a high school guidance counselor with TB south florida football . The original physician had missed the woman's infection -- and Reichman suspects it was largely for one simple reason: "Because she's a white, middle-class American," he said university of south florida merchandise . "Doctors think, 'Who gets TB?' Minority groups, foreign born, AIDS patients, alcoholics. No -- they probably get more than their share, but anybody can get it. "Even when the patient emigrates from a country where TB is endemic, doctors can miss the signs. Shanghai-born Lihua Zhang, a 53-year-old Mandarin lecturer at UC Berkeley, suffered for two years with abdominal pains so severe that she had to be admitted to a hospital several times. Doctors had diagnosed Crohn's disease, in which an overactive immune system causes inflammation of the stomach and intestines.

So she was prescribed prednisone, a steroid, to suppress her immune system. But that only caused her tuberculosis to blossom university south florida bulls South Florida Bulls - gousfbulls . Only when it had spread to her throat, and she lay gravely ill in a hospital, did another doctor -- who was born in Taiwan -- seriously consider TB. Zhang later had to undergo surgery to remove part of her intestine, which had been scarred as a result of prolonged TB infection. Later, she was told that the medical team initially hadn't considered TB, partly because she was an instructor at a university and lived in an affluent ZIP Code. "They just assumed," Zhang said, but "I am an immigrant usf bulls football tickets . I lived in a place where TB is quite common. "A recent study in New Jersey showed that foreign-born TB patients were more likely to live in better-educated and affluent areas than their U. South Florida Bulls tickets S. -born counterparts. Reichman said that when in doubt, doctors need to pick up the telephone usf bulls season tickets . But "how do you get an arrogant doctor who says, 'I'm a specialist in infectious disease,' who may not be that familiar with tuberculosis, to put down his arrogance and call for help?" said Reichman, whose TB Institute is holding a training session this fall for TB experts. Castro said complacency was a factor in the most recent resurgence of TB in the U. S. , between 1985 and 1992. "That was a wake-up call for the country, that if you let your guard down . . the usf bulls . TB could come back and bite you," Castro said. Glasberg, the patient who was not correctly treated for 11 years, said that in retrospect, he might have been better off being treated in Chile, where TB is more common and doctors more likely to suspect it.