Clinico-Epidemiological Profile of Extra Pulmonary Tuberculosis: A Report from a High Prevalence State of Northern India

INTRODUCTION:  World Health Organization (WHO) reports that about two billion i.e. nearly one third of the world’s population is currently infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Developing countries account for 95% of the burden of tuberculosis. Himachal Pradesh a hilly state of India has higher extra pulmonary tuberculosis than the national average according to the available data

METHODS:  The study was a questionnaire based cross sectional survey in low and high prevalence Tuberculosis Units of Himachal Pradesh.  All new EPTB cases registered between 1st July 2007 and 31st March 2008 in selected TUs (TU Rampur and TU Chaupal) were selected for the purpose of study. These two TUs were selected out of four TUs in the district Shimla – one with highest proportion of new EPTB cases and the other with least proportion of new EPTB cases out of all new TB cases. The data collected was entered into MS Excel spread sheet 2003. Both descriptive and analytical analyses were done using statistical package SPSS version 10.0.1

RESULTS:  The overall mean age of EPTB patients was 26.82 ±11.71 years (26.88 ± 12.28 years in males and 26.76 ± 26.76 years in females). Of the 86 patients enrolled, 70.9% were from high prevalence TU and 29.1% were from low prevalence TU. Mean age of the patients was 26.67 ± 11.72 years. Of 86 patients 57 (66.3%) were in the age group of 15 – 34 years. Overall, pleural TB was the most common type of EPTB followed by lymph node TB (53 cases, 61.6% and 20 cases, 23.2% respectively)

CONCLUSIONS:  

The study shows interalia that Pleural TB was the most common form of extra pulmonary tuberculosis in our study population allows us to plan for management of tuberculosis in a better way.