• Esra Zerdali, İnci Yılmaz Nakir, Serkan Sürme, Uğurcan Sayılı, and Mustafa Yıldırım.
• Haseki Education Research Hospital, Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, İstanbul, Turkey.
• Afr Health Sci. 2021 Sep 1; 21 (3): 995-1002.

Background/AimTuberculosis (TB) is one of the most common chronic infectious conditions causing mortality and severe outcomes, particularly in people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). In this study, we aimed to determine the prevalence and predictors of TB among PLWHA.Materials And MethodsWe conducted a retrospective and single-center study of adults (≥18 years) PLWHA registered at our tertiary teaching and research hospital between 2000 and 2016.ResultsA total of 711 PLWHA were included. Of whom, 633 (89.0%) were male. Mean age was 36.53 ±11.55 years (range, 17-79). Thirty-eight (5.3%) patients were diagnosed with active TB. TB development was associated with low CD4+ lymphocyte count (p<0.001), high viral load (p=0.040) and alcohol consumption (p=0.004) but no association with age (p=0.392), gender (p=0.928) and duration since anti-retroviral therapy initiation (p=0.788) was found. Also, a receiver operating characteristic analysis showed that the area under the curves of CD4+ lymphocyte count as a predictor for TB development in PLWHA was 0.717 (p<0.001).ConclusionThere are still clinical challenges to predict TB diagnosis. However, CD4+ lymphocyte count and viral load may be considered as valuable predictors for TB development. Also, community strategies to reduce harmful effect of alcohol use should be developed.© 2021 Zerdali E et al.

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