Background
Tuberculosis (T) may be reactivated following a primary, silent, and unknown T infection, when immunodeficiency (often jatrogenic in origin), or other risk factors (e.g. cancer, cachexia), become apparent. Post-primary T episodes were described also decades after a primary M. tuberculosis infection, in patients (p) who show apparently limited radiographic signs at chest X-ray. Some grade of immunodeficiency may also depend on the administration of associated IFN-ribavirin for an underlying chronic HCV hepatitis, as expressed by the frequent emerging of leuko-neutropenia, and altered cytokine network.