A Prospective Comparative Study among Adult and Geriatric Smear Positive Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients in a Tertiary Care Hospital of Dehradun, Uttarakhand
Keywords:
Pulmonary tuberculosis, Tuberculosis, Young adults, ElderlyAbstract
Background: Tuberculosis has remained a public health problem in India since long and is increasingly becoming more common in older age group.
Aim: This study aimed to compare the clinical features, predisposing factors and imaging findings of pulmonary TB in the elderly and in young adults, and to determine if any difference exists between the two age groups.
Materials and Methods: A total of 38 patients were in the elderly group while 130 patients made the young adult group. A prospective case series study was designed to see similarity/ dissimilarity between both groups of patients.
Results: Mean age of young adult and elderly patients was 46±3.5 years and 64.7±2.4years respectively. Weight loss (65.8%), Anorexia (73.7%), Chest pain (36.8%) and Dyspnoea (52.6%) were seen mostly in the elderly age group however symptoms like cough (88.5%), fever (90%), night sweats (59.2%) and haemoptysis (34.6%) were common in the adult age groups. Bilateral involvement (60.5% vs. 37.7%), far advanced disease (28.9% vs. 20.8%) and a lower zone involvement (31.6% vs. 10%) were more frequently found in elderly patients as compared to young adult patients.
Conclusions: With the rising elderly population and non specific presentation of symptoms of TB in this group specific strategies are needed to quickly address TB management in the elderly.
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