Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Pleural Tuberculosis and its Treatment Outcomes

Amer Hayat Khan¹ , Syed Azhar Syed Sulaiman¹, Abdul Razak Muttalif², Mohamed Azmi Hassali³, Hadeer Akram¹, Syed Wasif Gillani⁴, Syed Wasif Gillani¹

¹Department of Clinical Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang; ²Department of Respiratory Medicine, Penang Hospital, Penang; ³Discipline of Social & Administrative Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia; ⁴Discipline of Pharmacy, Monash University, Bandar Sunway, Selangor, Malaysia.

For correspondence:- Amer Khan Email: amerhayat@ymail.com Tel:+0060173860275

Received: 19 July 2012 Accepted: 23 June 2013 Published: 23 August 2013

Citation: Khan AH, Sulaiman SA, Muttalif AR, Hassali MA, Akram H, Gillani SW, et al. Pleural Tuberculosis and its Treatment Outcomes. Trop J Pharm Res 2013; 12(4):623-627 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v12i4.27

© 2013 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the incidence, treatment and clinical outcomes of tuberculosis pleuritis at a hospital in the state of Penang, Malaysia.

Methods: A retrospective study was conducted in Hospital of Penang, Malaysia. Patient records were reviewed retrospectively to identify patients with confirmed diagnosis of tuberculous pleuritis from January 2006 to December 2008. Chest x-ray (CXR) and pleural biopsy were carried out on all patients. Directly observed therapy (DOT) was given to all patients. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 16.

Results: Of 1548 tuberculosis cases, 80 (5.2 %) patients had tuberculous pleuritis. The mean age of the patients was 35.4 ± 12.87 years, with a male to female ratio of 3.4:1. Ethnically, a plurality (n = 30, 37.7 %) of cases among tuberculosis pleuritis patients were Chinese, followed by Malay (31.2 %). Out of the 80 patients with tuberculous pleuritis, 10 (12.5 %) also had diabetes mellitus, and 8 (10.0 %) HIV/AIDS. Fever, cough, chest pain and shortness of breathing were the most frequently reported symptoms. Treatment success rate was 1.558 times higher among TB group than pleuritis TB group (Odds ratio, 95 % CI, 1.06 – 2.59, p = 0.025).

Conclusion: The incidence of TB pleuritis was gender- and race-related, with DM and HIV the most commonly reported risk factors. Treatment success rate was higher among pulmonary TB group than in those with TB pleuritis (extra pulmonary TB).

Keywords: Tuberculosis, Pleuritis, HIV/AIDS, Biopsy, Pulmonary