Case findings from routine chest roentgenograms: mass surveys of communities versus general hospital admissions.

Abstract

Since 1947, the Division of Tuberculosis Control of the New York State Department of Health, through its Bureau of Case Finding, has been administering two tuberculosis case-finding services in upstate New York, that is, all of the state exclusive of New York City. These two services have a common purpose, namely, through the medium of chest roentgenographic examinations to screen out those persons who may have tuberculosis of the lungs. The general hospital program does this among patients admitted to general hospitals, and the mass survey program deals with apparently healthy persons. It should be emphasized that these two services do not supplant, but supplement, the long-established routine tuberculosis clinic services for the examination of contacts and patients with symptoms, which are provided by state and local tuberculosis hospitals and local health departments and which during 1952 examined 86,000 persons. At the end of 1953, during approximately the first six