UNASSIGNED: The diverse manifestations of tuberculosis (TB) in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients can cause difficulty in diagnosis, delayed treatment, even death. Therefore, this study investigated the clinical characteristics and the risk factors for mortality in CKD patients with TB.
UNASSIGNED: This retrospective study included 167 patients diagnosed with active TB at two tertiary medical centers in Chongqing within six years. Clinical characteristics and outcomes of anti-TB treatment in patients with and without CKD were collected, and the predictive mortality values of variables were analyzed.
UNASSIGNED: Of the 167 patients, 66.7% (44/66) hemodialysis (HD), 41.1% (21/51) pre-HD, and 32.0% (16/50) non-CKD patients had extrapulmonary TB. The pleura and lymph node were the common sites in CKD patients. Clinical presentations of cough and hemoptysis in CKD patients were less common than those in non-CKD patients, 13.7% (16/117) of CKD patients even not having any clinical symptoms. The positive rates of tuberculin skin test, TB-polymerase chain reaction and acid-fast bacilli in sputum in HD patients were lower than those in pre-HD and non-CKD patients (p<0.05). CKD patients were more prone to gastrointestinal and neurological side effects during anti-TB treatment. The mortality rates of non-CKD, pre-HD and HD patients was 6.1%, 31.9% and 37.3%, respectively. Multivariate Cox analysis revealed that age≥40 years (HR: 5.871; p=0.019), hypoalbuminemia (HR:2.879; p=0.004), CKD stage 4-5 (HR:4.719; p=0.018) and HD (HR:6.13; p=0.005) were associated with mortality.
UNASSIGNED: CKD patients with TB have atypical clinical manifestations and high mortality. Age, hypoalbuminemia, CKD stage 4-5, and HD were independent predictors of mortality.

Diagnosis of pediatric tuberculosis (TB) is often complicated by its nonspecific symptoms, paucibacillary nature, and the need for invasive specimen collection techniques. However, a recently reported assay that detects Mycobacterium tuberculosis virulence factors in serum can diagnose various TB manifestations, including paucibacillary TB cases, in adults with good sensitivity and specificity. The current study examined the ability of this M. tuberculosis biomarker assay to diagnose pediatric TB using archived cryopreserved serum samples drawn from children ≤18 years of age who were screened for suspected TB as part of a prospective population-based active surveillance study. In this analysis, any detectable level of either of the M. tuberculosis virulence factors CFP-10 and ESAT-6 was considered direct evidence of TB. Serum samples from 105 children evaluated for TB (55 TB cases and 50 close contacts without TB) were analyzed. The results of this analysis yielded sensitivity of 85.5% (95% confidence interval [CI], 73.3 to 93.5). Similar diagnostic sensitivities were observed for culture-positive (87.5%; 95% CI, 67.6 to 97.3) and culture-negative (83.9%; 95% CI, 66.3 to 94.5) TB cases and for culture negative pulmonary (77.8%; 95% CI, 40.0 to 97.2) and extrapulmonary (86.4%; 95% CI, 65.1 to 97.1) TB cases. These results suggest that serum biomarker analysis holds significant promise for rapid and sensitive diagnosis of pediatric TB cases, including extrapulmonary or paucibacillary TB cases. The ability to use frozen samples for this analysis should also permit assays to be performed at central sites, without a requirement for strict timelines for sample analysis.