Abstract

FESCINA, Pablo Martín; MEMBRIANI, Evangelina; LIMONGI, Leticia  and  PUTRUELE, Ana. Incidencia de la resistencia a drogas en tuberculosis y su asociación a comorbilidades en pacientes tratados en un hospital universitario. Rev. amer. med. respiratoria [online]. 2013, vol.13, n.2, pp.64-70. ISSN 1852-236X.

Tuberculosis is a public health problem with a higher incidence in poor countries. There are two aspects to consider: co-morbidities which are risk factors for tuberculosis, complicating its evolution and treatment, and resistance to first line drugs which is a threat to tuberculosis control. The objective of the paper was to identify the co-morbidities and the frequency of drug resistance in tuberculosis patients. The study included patients older than 16 years of age with diagnosis of tuberculosis at the Hospital de Clinicas San Jose de San Martin in Buenos Aires. The SSPS 15 program was used for the statistical analysis. From April 1997 to March 2010, 687 patients were treated for confirmed tuberculosis. The most frequent co-morbidities were: tobacco smoking habit 14%; alcoholism 4.8%; cancer 3.3%; COPD and asthma 5.6%; blood diseases 2%; autoimmune diseases 3.3%; diabetes 3%; HIV infection 6.5%; IRC 1.2%. The tobacco smoking habit was more frequently associated to pulmonary tuberculosis (p = 0.079), instead the autoimmune and blood diseases were mostly associated to miliary tuberculosis (p = 0.001) and the HIV infection to tuberculosis in several organs (p = 0.002). Drug resistance was more frequent when autoimmune diseases (4%) and HIV infection (2%) were present, but without reaching statistical significance (p = 0.779). Resistance to at least one drug was present in 47 patients (6.8%). In the last 4 years, 2 cases of extremely drug resistant tuberculosis were detected. There was no significant association between the type of drug resistance and the co-morbidities. Only one death was registered in a patient with extremely drug resistant tuberculosis. Previous treatment (p = 0.001) and sputum positive tuberculosis (p = 0.016) were factors associated to increased drug resistance.

Keywords : Tuberculosis; Co-morbidities; Resistance.

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