COMPARISON OF COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY FEATURES OF PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS IN SMOKERS VERSUS NON-SMOKERS

Abstract

Background:

Tuberculosis is an ailment that may result from bacteria. Tuberculosis is viewed as a chronic illness; however, diseases that result from mycobacterium tuberculosis concentrate on the lungs. The disease can stay latent before developing into an ailment, which may easily spread through air droplets that harbor the bacteria. If the level of poverty in any nation is high, the illness continues to pose a major public health challenge, especially in instances of pulmonary tuberculosis.

Objective:

To assess how smoking affects clinical features, radiological severity, and treatment outcomes in pulmonary tuberculosis.

Methodology:

Cross sectional Analytical study was conducted at DHQ Hospital Layyah for four months, to evaluate imaging techniques for detecting the features of tuberculosis in smoker and non-smoker. A total of 73 patients underwent scans using a computed tomography (128 slice Toshiba), with all observations recorded by radiologists. Data analysis was performed using SPSS 27.0 to determine distribution, frequency, percentage, and diagnostic accuracy.

Results: This study consists of 73 patients having pulmonary tuberculosis with features of cavitation, nodules and fibrosis. The main purpose of this study was to assess how smoking affects clinical features, radiological severity, and treatment outcomes in pulmonary tuberculosis. As a result, this study showed a significant relationship between smoking and nodules in tuberculosis patients. By using Chi-square testing (p = 0.002), all showed consistent relationship that nodules increase with severity of smoking in tuberculosis patients on Computed Tomography. On other hand there is no significant relationship detected among features of tb such as cavitation and fibrosis in smoker and non-smoker. Chi-square analysis (p = 0.17, p=0.13) are not according to their significant value respectively.

Conclusion:  It is concluded that smoking greatly effects the feature of tuberculosis. Smoking is correlated with nodules, the feature of tuberculosis. Nodules are much more in smoker as compare to non-smoker