The relationship between vitamin D level and second acid-fast bacilli (AFB) smear-positive during treatment for TB patients was inferred by Bayesian network

Xiaoxu Zhang; Yan Zhang; Wenjun Xia; Yajie Liu; Hongkai Mao; Liangliang Bao; MingQin Cao

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0267917

The relationship between vitamin D level and second acid-fast bacilli (AFB) smear-positive during treatment for TB patients was inferred by Bayesian network

PLoS One. 2022 May 4;17(5):e0267917. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0267917. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Xiaoxu Zhang¹, Yan Zhang¹, Wenjun Xia¹, Yajie Liu², Hongkai Mao¹, Liangliang Bao¹, MingQin Cao¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, School of Public Health, Xinjiang Medical University, Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China.
² Medical Record Room, Third Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University, Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China.

Abstract

Background: Vitamin D is related to human immunity, so we used Bayesian network model to analyze and infer the relationship between vitamin D level and the acid-fast bacilli (AFB) smear-positive after two months treatment among pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) patients.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. 731 TB patients whose vitamin D level were detected and medical records were collected from December 2019 to December 2020 in XinJiang of China. Logistic regression was used to analyze the influencing factors of second AFB smear-positive. Bayesian network was used to further analyze the causal relationship among vitamin D level and the second AFB smear-positive.

Results: Baseline AFB smear-positive (OR = 6.481, 95%CI: 1.604~26.184), combined cavity (OR = 3.204, 95%CI: 1.586~6.472), full supervision (OR = 8.173, 95%CI:1.536~43.492) and full management (OR = 6.231, 95%CI:1.031~37.636) were not only the risk factors and can also be considered as the reasons for second AFB smear-positive in TB patients (Ensemnle > 0.5). There was no causal relationship between vitamin D level and second AFB smear-positive (Ensemnle = 0.0709).

Conclusions: The risk factors of second AFB smear-positive were baseline AFB smear-positive, combined cavity, full supervision and full management. The vitamin D level in TB patients was not considered as one of the reasons for the AFB smear-positive.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Bayes Theorem
Cross-Sectional Studies
Humans
Mycobacterium tuberculosis*
Sputum*
Vitamin D

Substances

Vitamin D

Grants and funding

The study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant number 82060622). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.