Tuberculosis in maintenance dialysis patients

In this investigation, we tried to find the incidence and characteristics o f tuberculosis (TB) in dialysis patients previously found only in a small n umber of cases. We collected the cases of newly diagnosed TB patients in Ta iwan during 1997. Simultaneously, all dialysis patients were collected and matched with the TB cases to identify the dialysis patients who had also co ntracted TB. The annual incidence of the dialysis population was 493.4/100, 000, 6.9 times that of the general population (71.1/100,000), The annual in cidence for the male dialysis population was 573.3, the incidence was 479.2 for the female dialysis population. The incidence for the general populati on was 97.1 and 43.7/100,000, respectively. Although the 1-year mortality r ate due to TB (1.7 vs. 1.9%, p > 0.05) was similar in both populations, the non-TB mortality was much higher in the dialysis population than that in t he general population (25.6 vs. 11.1%, p < 0.05). Finally, the 1-year morta lity rate of dialysis patients with TB is 3.3 times higher than that in dia lysis patients without TB (27.3 vs. 8.3%, p < 0.05). The findings suggest t hat uremia modifies the behavior of TB, jeopardizes female and younger dial ysis patients, poses a higher risk of extrapulmonary dissemination, and pre dicts a higher overall mortality. Copyright (C) 2001 S. Karger AG, Basel.