[The non-tuberculous mycobacteriosis].

The Japanese Society for Tuberculosis officially announced that public name of "atypical mycobacteriosis" was changed to the Nontuberculous Mycobacteriosis, on April 2003. We sent out questionnaires on number of nontuberculous mycobacteriosis (NTM) to 2051 respiralogists. The number of newly diagnosed NTM patients from Apr. 2001 to Sep. 2001 were 1522 cases, those were 29.2% of all mycobacteriosis containing TB. The M. avium-intracellulare (MAC) disease took up 82.8% of all NTM, and M. kansasii disease took 8.1%. The rare species were M. gordonae, M. abscessus, M. fortuitum, M. chelonae, M. szulgai, M. scrofulaceum and M. xenopi. The former investigations noted that in the northan half of Japan, M. avium disease predominated M. intracellulare disease in MAC, and M. intracellulare disease overwhelmed in the southern half of Japan. Our newest examination revealed that in the northan half, M. avium is predominant but, in the southern half, the rate of two species is almost the same. Dr. Kobashi and his group surveyed the effect of combined chemotherapy following the guidelines on treatment for MAC disease. They revealed that the clinical effect of the combined chemotherapy (RFP, EB, SM and CAM) was better than that of the other regimens. However the efficacy of this therapy was unsatisfactory compared with the effect for pulmonary TB.