[Clinical presentation of tuberculosis in routine practice].

Since the beginning of the biologics era tuberculosis is known to be a potential life-threatening complication during treatment of patients with rheumatic diseases. National and international societies have developed recommendations for tuberculosis screening and treatment of patients at risk for development of tuberculosis. Owing to the relative rareness of overt tuberculosis in patients with rheumatic diseases, the experience of individual rheumatologists with this complication is limited. Therefore, we have analyzed the tuberculosis cases from 2006-2011 in our rheumatology referral center (treating more than 1,500 inpatient and 8,000 outpatient cases every year) to obtain a real-life picture more than 10 years after initiation of the first application of biologics outside of controlled clinical trials. We identified 4 cases that illustrate the difficulties of diagnosis and treatment.