[The clinical investigation of so-called "pleural tuberculoma" in the last 3 years].

We have investigated on the clinical features of pleural nodular lesions which have appeared during chemotherapy of tuberculous pleurisy. Such lesions were observed in more than 10% of the cases of tuberculous pleurisy. This type of lesion occurred more frequently in the pleurisy patients whose chest X-ray did not show any tuberculous lesion in lung field and whose sputum was negative of tubercle bacilli. Most of the patients with such lesion were young. From these results, it was suggested that such lesion might develop during the course of primary tuberculosis. Single nodular lesion was more common but multiple nodular lesions were not rare. They had occurred in 2-4 months after the start of anti-tuberculous chemotherapy including RFP, usually accompanied with chest pain. They had disappeared within 6-12 months without any additional therapy. In summary, pleural nodular lesions, which occurred during chemotherapy of tuberculous pleurisy, were not rare, but the clinical course and prognosis of such lesion were favourable and improved without any additional therapy. The etiology of such lesion has remained to be clarified.