Key points from today’s guests:

Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer, The University of Kansas Health System and executive vice chancellor, The University of Kansas Medical Center  

• Today we are learning about a family of bacteria called “mycobacteria.”
• They are everywhere – soil, dust, water – but they are typically not harmful.
• However, in some cases, these germs may cause serious and deadly infections.
• This family of bacteria has many “family members” – at least 190 different species.
• But we divide that family into two groups – M. tuberculosis and everybody else.

Dr. Matt Shoemaker, division director, Infectious Disease, The University of Kansas Health System

• Most antibiotics work against bacteria when they reproduce. TB reproduces slowly, so you have to take a long time to make sure you get to all the different bacteria.
• We would first have to identify who has disease and needs to be isolated, because if they have it, they’re contagious.
• We have a blood test, which looks at how a particular subset of your white blood cells, the lymphocytes, work to see if you've been exposed to TB.
• And then we would do a chest X ray, and we would talk to the patient, because while these tests are good, they're not perfect. So we would ask them about the symptoms.
• If they have late disease, we would treat them for that, and if they have active disease, then we would isolate them and treat them for that.

Dr. Andreas Schmid, pulmonologist, The University of Kansas Health System

• With non-tuberculosis, diagnosis is a challenge.
• For a lot of people who grow these bacteria, they can often be silent – they can have them for 10 or even 20 years without anybody knowing.
• Hot water, or even water in general, is a perfect breeding ground for non-tuberculosis mycobacterium.
• There's a mycobacterium named after the state of Kansas that is probably the closest to tuberculosis.

Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director, Infection Prevention & Control, The University of Kansas Health System

• TB is a is a bacteria that's spread through air -- coughing, speaking, singing.
• It is not as contagious as COVID, so you have to be in contact for a prolonged time, particularly indoors.
• Those who are very young, very old, or have a suppressed immune system are at increased risk for getting infection.
• Those bacteria can evade that immune system, overcome that immune system, and cause tuberculosis infection.
• There is treatment for tuberculosis infection, and when people take that, they can significantly -- up to 90 percent -- reduce the chance that later on they can develop TB disease.
• Mycobacteria is not fungus.

Thursday, Sept. 5 at 8 a.m. is the next All Things Heart. Hear more about a miracle medical story that you might see in a movie.

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