Publication:

Thyroid profile in pulmonary tuberculosis patients: a prospective study in a tertiary medical college of southern Odisha

Background Globally, an estimated 10.0 million (range, 9.0 to 11.1 million) people infected with tuberculosis (TB). Developing country like India accounts for one fourth of the global tuberculosis burden. TB is associated with diffuse functional impairment of most endocrine organs.

Methods We conducted a study to evaluate the thyroid profile status in new sputum positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients, aged 12 years and above; attended and admitted to chest and TB, Medicine Department of SLN MCH, Koraput, Odisha from January 2019 to December 2019. Patients with H/o old pulmonary tuberculosis, patient with known neurological, hypothalamic-pituitary or thyroid disorders, kidney disease, malignancies and patients receiving medications known to interfere with thyroid hormone metabolism were excluded from the study. Statistical analysis was done by using SPSS version 21.0 software. Results were expressed in average±SD, frequencies and percentages. Continuous data were compared using Student’s t-test. A p value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant and p value <0.001 was considered as statistically extremely significant.

Results Mean age of the study group was 37.31±15.63 years. 54 patients (40.30%) were in 20 to 40 years of age group. We found, 48 (35.82%) pulmonary tuberculosis patients had sick euthyroid syndrome out of 134 pulmonary tuberculosis patients.

Conclusions Sick euthyroid syndrome occurs commonly in pulmonary tuberculosis patients with increasing incidence with advanced age, and also seen in patients with advanced pulmonary tuberculosis patients; therefore, requires monitoring of thyroid function test for its timely initiation of therapy.