This work was designed to study the pulmonary tuberculosis patients in Kalyoubia and El-Behiera governorates from the social and medical points of views. All patients attending Benha and Damahour chest Hospitals during the period from January to June 1996 were the target group of this study. They comprised 352 cases including 204 patients from Damanhour chest hospital and 148 from Benha chest Hospital. The results revealed that males constituted 55.7% of cases and a high percentage of the patients (54.3%) aged 25-50 years. The majority of the studied patients were rural inhabitants (87.5%), about two thirds of patients were married (65.3%), Non - educated patients constituted 88.9% of the target group and a high percentage of males in this study were manual workers (62.8%) while 67.9% of females were housewives. It was also found that 54.8% of the investigated patients had low percapita income per month (< 30 E.P.) and 27.0% of these cases were of high bed room crowding index (3 or more). Smokers, whether current or exsmokers, were found to constitute 66.8% of the diseased males. A large portion of the victims of pulmonary tuberculosis in this work were not vaccinated by B.C.G. (78.1%) and 19.6% of the studied cases were found to have positive family history of tuberculosis. The majority of the studied patients were regular in management (94.0%) and 97.7% of them receiving two or three drugs. Consequently, 78.7% of cases were improved. The percentage of rural, manual male workers, housewife females, poor, smokers among males and unvaccinated patients as well as those with positive family history of tuberculosis was found to be higher in El-Behiera than in Kalyoubia governorate with a statistically significant differences (P < 0.05). Patients with positive family history of tuberculosis were fund to be higher among the unimproved cases than among those improved with a statistically significant differences ( P < 0.01).
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