Culture-positive tuberculosis at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, 1962–1989

The disease types and demography of patients with culture confirmed tuberculosis (TB) diagnosed at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne between the years 1962 to 1989 were reviewed. Four hundred and eighty-two patients with culture-positive TB were identified whose origins were as follows: Australia 194; Northern Europe 38; The Mediterranean 98; Asia 60 and other or unknown 92. Patients whose country of birth was in Asia or the Mediterranean area accounted for 57% of patients in the 1980s; they presented at a younger age, with a higher proportion of extrapulmonary disease and a more equal sex distribution than did Australian born patients. The main types of extrapulmonary disease also differed for the various ethnic groups. The overall proportion of patients with an isolate resistant to at least one of the anti-TB drugs was 10.0% but in the Asian born was 21.7%. This survey, the longest series of bacteriologically confirmed cases of TB reported from a single institution in Australasia, has identified several changes in how TB is presenting for diagnosis. (Aust NZ J Med 1993; 23: 7–11.)