COVID-19 and tuberculosis coinfection: A case-control study from a tertiary care center in South India.

CONTEXT: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and tuberculosis (TB), are presently the major infectious diseases imposing a consequential public health threat and their coinfection has a significant impact on the outcome.

AIMS: To evaluate the clinical features and outcomes of COVID-19-TB coinfected cases compared to solely COVID-19-infected cases.

SETTINGS AND

DESIGN

A retrospective observational study was conducted between August 1, 2020, to February 28, 2022, at a tertiary care hospital.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

In this case-control study, an equal number of gender-age-matched COVID-19 and TB coinfected patients and COVID-19 cases without TB were included using simple random sampling.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: The data was analyzed using SPSS v 26. Categorical variables were compared using the Chi-square test, and an independent t-test or Mann-Whitney U test was applied for the quantitative variables in the univariate analysis. A P-value of less than 0.05 was considered significant.

RESULTS

A total of 27 patients were included in each group. Upper lobe involvement (44%) and pleural effusion (22%) were significantly more common in TB-COVID-19 cases when compared to the control group (7% and 4%, respectively; P < 0.05). Moreover, median levels of C-reactive protein and ferritin were significantly higher in TB-COVID-19 coinfection.

CONCLUSIONS

Chest radiology and a higher level of certain biomarkers like C-reactive protein and ferritin can help to suspect TB in COVID-19 patients and vice-versa.