PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Sonia Habibech
AU  - Ines Zendah
AU  - Khadija Ayed
AU  - Leila Bayahi
AU  - Ibtihel Kouaja
AU  - Habib Ghedira
TI  - Predictive factors of relapse in pulmonary tuberculosis
DP  - 2012 Sep 01
TA  - European Respiratory Journal
PG  - P2593
VI  - 40
IP  - Suppl 56
4099  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P2593.short
4100  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P2593.full
SO  - Eur Respir J2012 Sep 01; 40
AB  - Background: Pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) relapse is a life-threatening condition. Revealing the factors that lead to relapse may help developing preventive measures.Aim: The aim of this study is to reveal the main predictive factors of relapse in patients with pulmonary TB.Methods: We compared the data reported during the first episode of TB of 22 non-HIV patients treated for pulmonary TB and who had a relapse with those of 36 non-HIV patients treated for the same disease without relapse. Files were selected if the follow-up period exceeds 3 years. Results are expressed as a percent or a mean with [CI95%].Results: Patients with relapsing disease, as compared to patients without relapse, are older (61[56-65] vs 37[33-41] years-old), with history of heavier smoking (40[29-51] vs 18[10-26] Pack-Years) and a lower proportion of TB-vaccinated patients (40% vs 80%; p=0.05). The 2 last findings are likely to be correlated to age. But independently of age, in patients with relapse, we found a higher proportion of patients who have a close contact with another TB-patient (63% vs 38 %; p=0.01) and a more frequent right lung involvement (50% vs 36 % p=0.05).Conclusion: From our data, relapse of pulmonary TB is more likely to occur in older patients, those exposed to contagious persons and those with a right lung involvement during the first episode of TB.