Prevelance of Clinical Tuberculosis in HIV infected patients from Kermanshah Province, Iran

ABSTRACT

Tuberculosis is a common infection among HIV positive patients. It causes a lot of obstacles in diagnosis, and it can significantly affect the course of HIV infection. Between March 1997 and April 2001, we evaluated the rate of clinical tuberculosis among 638 HIV positive patients in Kermanshah province in IRAN. The study population was consisted of HIV infected patients who had been received anti tuberculosis drug regimen. Medical records of the patients were reviewed for age, gender, marital status, clinical presentation, infection source, and treatment outcome. Clinical tuberculosis was observed in 73 [11.4%] HIV- infected patients, 80.9% of whom were smear-positive, 10.9% were smear-negative, and the remaining 8.2% revealing to have extra-pulmonary tuberculosis. The patients were adapted to anti tuberculosis treatment with a cure rate of about 80%. The prevalence rate of clinical tuberculosis is high but underestimated, and it seems to be due to vulnerability of our patients to tuberculosis in the setting of intravenous drug usage as a major underlying factor for HIV among infected individuals and also residence in prisons due to illegal drug consumption