Glycemic Status in Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patient

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading infectious disease causing of death among adults worldwide.
Chronic infections like TB, can induce transient hyperglycemia, TB cases are also more likely to have diabetes
mellitus (DM) than the general population. Tuberculosis and altered glycemic status complicate each other at
numerous levels. Prolonged hyperglycemic state doubles or triples the incidence of active tuberculosis and
increases the risk of tuberculosis treatment failure and death, there may be altered glycemic status in patients
with PTB. Currently world health organization (WHO) also recommends for such bi-directional screening as
detecting early the co-existence of these diseases can lead to better management of both cases. So this study is
aimed to assess the association of tuberculosis with the presence and persistence of hyperglycemia.
Objective: To assess the glycemic status in pulmonary tuberculosis patients.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in department of Medicine and Department of
Endocrinology, Rangpur Medical College Hospital and Tajhat Chest disease Hospital, Rangpur for 2 years
(2021 – 2022). After careful history taking, examination and appropriate investigations fulfilling inclusion and
exclusion criteria, total 100 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis, irrespective of their sex, race and ethnic group
were included in this study. A semi-structured questionnaire was developed by using the selected variables
according to the specific objectives. Data analysis was carried out by using SPSS (version 24).
Results: On assessing glycemic status, 45% patients were diabetic. BMI of PTB patients of the study was
statistically associated with diabetic status (p=0.021). Smoking had significant relation with diabetic status
(p=0.012). Most of the patients were primary smoker. Most of the diabetic patients had history of diabetes in
their family. Family history of diabetes was significantly associated with diabetic status (p<0.001). According to
post hoc analysis non-diabetic patients were significantly younger than prediabetic and diabetic patients
(p<0.001).
Conclusion: In this study, the glycemic status of patient with pulmonary TB revealed that diabetes is quite
prevalent in TB patients and factors such as age, family history of diabetes, BMI, smoking history had an
influence in glycemic status of the patients.