PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Dushantha Madegedara
AU  - Damith Nandadeva
AU  - Samudani Dhanasekera
AU  - Hansa Kumara
TI  - Lag period for diagnosing and starting treatment for pulmonary tuberculosis patients
DP  - 2014 Sep 01
TA  - European Respiratory Journal
PG  - P2674
VI  - 44
IP  - Suppl 58
4099  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/44/Suppl_58/P2674.short
4100  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/44/Suppl_58/P2674.full
SO  - Eur Respir J2014 Sep 01; 44
AB  - Objective To calculate the total lag period in diagnosing PTB patients.Design Descriptive cross sectional studyMethodsInformation was collected from TB registry during December 2012 to M ay 2013 . Patients with two or more typical symptoms of PTB more than two weeks was taken as inclusion criterion[2]. Results were analyzed using Microsoft Excel 2010 software.Results63 patients were enrolled. 34 sputum positive patients age range of 9-70 years (41.76±17.43) were found; out of them, 25 were males. Among those 24(70.58%) had cough, 9(29.47%) haemoptysis, 14(41.17%) fever, 20(58.87%) LOA and 13(38.23%) with LOW. The mean lag period for positive PTB was 7.05±6.16 weeks.29 PTB negative patients with the age range of 13-69 years (57.34±18.98) were included. Out of them 14 were male patients. They presented with cough 21(72.41%), haemoptysis 3 (10.34%), fever 8(27.58%), LOA 14 (48.27%) and LOW 11(37.93%). The mean lag period for sputum negative PTB group was 7.93±6.93 weeks.20 positive (58.82%) and 19 negative (65.51%) PTB patients had a delayed diagnosis while taking treatment from a health care professional.ConclusionBoth group of patients had significant delayed diagnosis. Out of these two groups, delay in diagnosis of smear positive patients has adverse impact on the general population as during this period a patient can infect the community. This in turn affects the prevalence of TB locally and globally.Although health care personals were educated during their course of training and continued medical education, significant delay in diagnosis occurred at their level.Continuous awareness and high degree of suspicion of TB is essential among the health care personals and general public.