PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS

AGE RELATED RADIOLOGICAL FINDINGS

Abstract

Objective: To study the age related radiological finding in pulmonary tuberculosis. Study design: A cross sectional study. Place and duration of study: From January 2009 to December 2009 pulmonary department of Bahawal Victoria Hospital Bahawal Pur. Patients and method: The cases diagnosed as pulmonary tuberculosis of either gender above age of 12 years were included in the study. Patients suffering from extra pulmonary tuberculosis, treatment failure, relapse, drug resistant tuberculosis and HIV sero-positive patients were excluded from the study. Patients were divided into groups according to the age. Group 1 consist of patients having age ≥ 50years while group 2 consist of patients having <50 years. Data was recorded on the Proforma and was analyzed statistically on SPSS 11. Results: this study consists of 106 patients and divided into two groups. It has been found that apical zone of lung involvement was more common in patients younger than 50 years while involvement of lower zone was more common in patients with age ≥50years. No significant difference was found regarding the involvement of middle zone, multiple zones and the type of lesions as the p-value was >0.05. Conclusions: the elderly patients with pulmonary tuberculosis have predominant involvement of lower zones. So, lower zone involvement of radiological lesions should be evaluated for pulmonary tuberculosis to start the treatment earlier and to minimize the risk of missing the diagnosis.