Pretreatment chest x-ray severity and its relation to bacterial burden in smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Chest radiographs are used for diagnosis and severity assessment in tuberculosis (TB). The extent of disease as determined by smear grade and cavitation as a binary measure can predict 2-month smear results, but little has been done to determine whether radiological severity reflects the bacterial burden at diagnosis.

Methods

Pre-treatment chest x-rays from 1837 participants with smear-positive pulmonary TB enrolled into the REMoxTB trial (Gillespie et al., N Engl J Med 371:1577-87, 2014) were retrospectively reviewed. Two clinicians blinded to clinical details using the Ralph scoring system performed separate readings. An independent reader reviewed discrepant results for quality assessment and cavity presence. Cavitation presence was plotted against time to posi

SUBMITTER: Murthy SE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5961483 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature