The specific features of bacterial isolation and drug resistance of Mycobacteria in extrapulmonary tuberculosis

: The reduced viability and enzymatic activity of the pathogen from the foci of extrapulmonary tuberculosis are twice more frequently than those in pulmonary tuberculosis. The isolation of mycobacterial L-forms and the use of polymerase chain reaction significantly enhance the efficiency of the etiological diagnosis of extrapulmonary tuberculosis. There are extremely poor trends for drug resistance to develop in mycobacteria, in 2005 the rate of which was 92.5% in pulmonary tuberculosis and 83.4% in extrapulmonary tuberculosis. However, multidrug resistance is much less common in extrapulmonary tuberculosis than in pulmonary tuberculosis; the rates were 33.9 and 73.9%, respectively. Levofloxacin resistance was also completely preserved so the reserves for the treatment of extrapulmonary tuberculosis are higher than those in pulmonary tuberculosis.