跳至主要内容

Diagnosis and Treatment Outcomes of Tuberculosis in Relation to Gender and HIV STATUS in South Benin

Tuberculosis (TB) has been a serious burden to mankind over many generations and remains a major global health concern. Some research has shown that HIV is the most important risk factor for TB and is also known to negatively impact treatment outcomes of co-infected TBHIV patients. However, in Benin, little is known about the influence of both gender and HIV-status on diagnostic patterns and treatment outcomes of tuberculosis patients. So the authors in this study aimed to assess whether differences in gender and HIV status affected diagnostic patterns and treatment outcomes of TB patients.

The authors conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients registered in 2013 and 2014 in the three largest TB Basic Management Units in south Benin. In total, 2694 TB patients were registered in 2013 and 2014, of whom 1700 (63.1%) were males and 994 (36.9%) were females. Case notification rates were higher in males compared with females (96 vs 53/100,000 inhabitants). The male to female ratio was 1:1 in HIV positive patients, but was 2:1 among HIV negative cases.

The results indicated that in HIV-positive patients, there were no differences in TB types between men and women. In HIV-negative patients, there were significantly higher proportions of females with clinically diagnosed pulmonary TB (p = 0.04) and extrapulmonary TB (p < 0.001). Retreatment TB was 4.65 times higher amongst males compared with females. For new bacteriologically confirmed pulmonary TB, no differences were observed in treatment outcomes between genders in the HIV positive group; but significantly more unfavorable outcomes were reported among HIV negative males, with higher rates of failure (p < 0.001) and loss-to-follow up (p = 0.02).

In conclusion, the study has shown that overall TB notification rates were higher in males than in females in south Benin, with more females co-infected with HIV. And unfavorable outcomes were more common in HIV-negative males. Further studies are needed to explain the country specific underlying reasons for these gender differences in TB case notifications in Benin and to assess if there are any variations across the different regions.

Article by Ablo Prudence Wachinou, et al, from Bénin, France and UK.

Full access: http://mrw.so/RPn5O  

Image by rtcmedia, from Flickr-cc.

评论

发表评论

此博客中的热门博文

Electron Spin and Proton Spin in the Hydrogen and Hydrogen-Like Atomic Systems

Read full paper at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=52202#.VIj7tMnQrzE Author(s) Stanisław Olszewski * Affiliation(s) Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland . ABSTRACT The mechanical angular momentum and magnetic moment of the electron and proton spin have been calculated semiclassically with the aid of the uncertainty principle for energy and time. The spin effects of both kinds of the elementary particles can be expressed in terms of similar formulae. The quantization of the spin motion has been done on the basis of the old quantum theory. It gives a quantum number n = 1/2 as the index of the spin state acceptable for both the electron and proton ...
发表评论
阅读全文

Remarks on the Complexity of Signed k-Domination on Graphs

Read  full  paper  at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=53574#.VMnXsCzQrzE Author(s)    Chuan-Min Lee 1 , Cheng-Chien Lo 1 , Rui-Xin Ye 2 , Xun Xu 2 , Xiao-Han Shi 2 , Jia-Ying Li 2 Affiliation(s) 1 Department of Computer and Communication Engineering, Ming Chuan University, The First American University in Asia, Taoyuan, Taiwan, Chinese Taipei . 2 Department of Electronic Information Engineering, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, China . ABSTRACT This paper is motivated by the concept of the signed k-domination problem and dedicated to the complexity of the problem on graphs. For any fixed nonnegative integer k, we show that the signed k-domination problem is NP-complete for doubly chordal graphs. For strongly chordal graphs and distance-hereditary graphs, we show that the signed k-domination problem can be solved in polynomial time. We also show that the problem is linear-time solvable for trees, interval graphs, and chord...
发表评论
阅读全文

A Review of Technical Requirements for High Penetration of Wind Power Systems

Read full paper at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=52361#.VJN8VcCAM4 Author(s)    Yuan-Kang Wu 1 , Tung-Ching Lee 2 , Ting-Yen Hsieh 2 , Wei-Min Lin 2 Affiliation(s) 1 Department of Electrical Engineering, National Chung-Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan . 2 Green Energy and Environment Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan . ABSTRACT Renewable portfolio targets have been established in many regions around the world. Regional targets such as 20% renewable energy by year 2020 are not uncommon. As the levels of wind power penetration increase, there are many power system impacts. This work investigated possible challenges and technic...
发表评论
阅读全文