Frequency of Urogenital Tuberculosis in an Unselected Autopsy Series from 1928 to 1949 and 1976 to 1989

The evaluation of a total of 12,211 autopsy protocols prior to the introduction of chemotherapy (1928-1949) and in the recent years (1976-1989) had the following results: the frequency of renal tuberculosis has dropped from 2.0 to 0.6% of all autopsies in men and from 1.7 to 0.9% in women. While the frequency of miliary tuberculosis infections in general has decreased to about one fourth (from 2.7 to 0.6% of all autopsies), renal involvement in patients with miliary tuberculosis has rather increased (from 35.4 to 52.2 for men and from 37.5 to 68.0% for women). The frequency of miliary tuberculosis of the kidneys was two times higher in girls than in boys (3.8% of girls and 1.8% of boys). Tuberculosis of the renal pelvis, ureter or urinary bladder secondary to a renal tuberculous infection has decreased from 65 to 4.3% of all tuberculous infections with renal involvement in males and from 25 to 0% in females. In the second period, the frequency of genital tuberculosis has in all dropped to about one tenth.