Sputum smear positive tuberculosis among pulmonary tuberculosis patients at university of maiduguri teaching hospital: a retrospective study

Abstract

The identification of sputum smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis cases is recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as part of its directly observed therapy short course (DOTs) for effective global tuberculosis control. Earlier study performed in this centre (University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) Maiduguri) showed a relatively small prevalence of sputum smear positivity among Pulmonary Tuberculosis (PTB) patients that is not close to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Objectives: To determine the prevalence of sputum smear positive tuberculosis and assess the progress so far, 5 years after the earlier study. Methods: This is a retrospective study, where the records of all patients treated for tuberculosis at UMTH between April 2008 and December 2008 were retrieved and analysed. Demographic data of PTB patients and their results of sputum smear, stained by Ziehl-Neelson technique were obtained. The effect of HIV seropositivity and of its treatment using HAART on sputum smear was assessed. Results: Four hundred and thirty nine patients with PTB aged 14 years and above consisting of 254(57.9%) males and 185(42.1%) females were used for this study. The 20-25 year age group had the highest sputum smear positive cases, while those within the 62-67 year age group had the lowest. One hundred and eight patients (41.4%) had sputum smear positive results while 153(58.6%) patients had negative smears. No
significant difference in sputum positivity between HIV negative and HIV positive patients. Conclusion: The higher rate of sputum smear positive pulmonary TB cases showed an increase in detection rate compared with an earlier finding, but is still some miles away from the set target (MDG goals).