TITLE:
Association between Weight Change during Treatment and Treatment Outcome in Patients with Smear Positive Pulmonary Tuberculosis
AUTHORS:
Mohammad Khajedaluee, Maliheh Dadgarmoghaddam, Davoud Attaran, Amirhossein Zabihi, Seyedhassan Ashrafi
KEYWORDS:
Pulmonary Tuberculosis, Body Weight Change, Treatment Outcome
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Preventive Medicine,
Vol.4 No.6,
June
13,
2014
ABSTRACT: Tuberculosis (TB) is known as a disease of poverty and declared as a
global public health emergency by World Health Organization (WHO). Pulmonary
tuberculosis is the most common type of TB and is a wasting disease. It is
expected that the patients who lost weight during the course of disease, will
gain weight during successful treatment. So the aim of this study was to assess
the body weight changes through the treatment and its possible association with
treatment outcome in TB patients in Nishapur, an ancient city in Razavi
Khorasan province in Iran. This is an observational analytical study. Patients
were selected according to inclusion and exclusion criteria and available
information. Treatment Protocol for all patients was Directly Observed
Treatment, short Course Strategy (at least 6 months). All patients were weighed
at the beginning of treatment, after two months and at the end of treatment. Outcome
of treatment was classified into: cured, completed treatment, treatment failure
and death. Then the impact of weight changes during treatment was compared in
subgroups. From 874 patients, 819 patients (93.9%) were new cases, 48 (5.3%)
relapse, 5 patients (0.6%) patients who did not complete their treatment and 2
(0.2%) had failed prior therapy. The most common symptoms in all patients were:
cough, sputum, weight loss, fever, sweats, and hemoptysis. 8.1% of patients had
radiologic signs and the most common signs were cavity (2.9%). The weight
change during treatment was 2.91 ± 5.59 kg in cured group, 3.3 ± 3.29 kg in
completed treatment group, 2.95 ± 5.59 kg in treatment failure group and 1.02 ±
3.27 in dead group respectively. These differences were statistically
significant between the four groups (p