PATHOLOGICAL FEATURES CO-INFECTION TUBERCULOSIS/COVID-19
Autopsy material from 20 dead patients with co-infection tuberculosis/COVID-19 and 5 dead от COVID-19, without TB, studied. In co-infected patients the lungs showed signs, specific for each of the diseases. The changes were like a mosaic (with alternation of zones of TB-inflammation and viral pneumonia), or they were located in different segments and lobes of the lung. Pathological manifestations of COVID-19 were identical in both study groups. COVID-19 aggravates the severity of the condition in patients with advanced and destructive TB by the volume of lung damage increase due to the viral and viral-bacterial pneumonia, diffuse alveolar lung damage. In co-infected patients bacterial pneumonia developed 1.5 times more often, a possible reason for this is - pre-existing lung compromise due to a long course of tuberculosis, immunological disbalance in TB-patients. Some cases clinical hyperdiagnostic of the new coronaviral infection identified, the autopsy revealed the diseases with interstitial lesions and similar with COVID-19 clinical symptoms.