Effects of gender and age on development of concurrent extrapulmonary tuberculosis in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis: a population based study

PLoS One. 2013 May 22;8(5):e63936. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0063936. Print 2013.

Abstract

Most cases of adult-onset tuberculosis (TB) result from reactivation of a pre-existing Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. Mycobacterium tuberculosis usually invades the respiratory tract and most patients develop intrapulmonary TB; however, some patients develop concurrent pulmonary and extra-pulmonary TB. The purpose of the present study was to identify the demographic and clinical factors associated with an increased risk of concurrent extra-pulmonary diseases in patients with pulmonary TB. We compared patients who had isolated pulmonary TB with patients who had concurrent pulmonary and extra-pulmonary TB. We initially analyzed one-million randomly selected subjects from the population-based Taiwan National Health Insurance database. Based on analysis of 5414 pulmonary TB patients in this database, women were more likely than men to have concurrent extra-pulmonary TB (OR: 1.30, p = 0.013). A separate analysis of the Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital database, which relied on sputum culture-proven pulmonary TB, indicated that women were more likely than men to have concurrent extra-pulmonary TB (OR: 1.62, p = 0.039). There was no significant gender difference in extra-pulmonary TB for patients younger than 45 years in either database. However, for patients 45 years and older, women were more likely than men to have concurrent extra-pulmonary TB (insurance database: 9.0% vs. 6.8%, p = 0.016, OR: 1.36; hospital database: 27.3% vs. 16.0%, p = 0.008, OR = 1.98). Our results indicate that among patients who have pulmonary TB, older females have an increased risk for concurrent extra-pulmonary TB.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Age Distribution
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Child
  • Child, Preschool
  • Female
  • Gender Identity
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Infant, Newborn
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Mycobacterium tuberculosis
  • Risk
  • Taiwan / epidemiology
  • Tuberculosis / epidemiology*
  • Tuberculosis / etiology*
  • Tuberculosis / microbiology
  • Tuberculosis, Pulmonary / complications*
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

This study was supported by a grant from the Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital (KMUH100-7G17). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.