Study of Lipid profile in pulmonary TB cases: pre and post anti-tuberculosis treatment

Tuberculosis is a major public health problem where India accounts for one fifth of the global burden of TB incident cases. Changes in blood lipid profile has been observed during the natural course of TB infection. Decrease in the level of both TC and HDL cholesterol has been observed in the early stages. This study was undertaken to study the lipid profile of newly diagnosed pulmonary TB patients, to compare it with healthy control and to subsequently study the effect of ATT on lipid profile. 50 newly diagnosed pulmonary TB patients and 50 age and sex matched healthy controls were selected for this study. All the lipid parameters were found to be significantly low in the pulmonary TB infected cases compared to control, at the time of diagnosis. After the completion of ATT, all the lipid parameters were found to increase from the initial value. Recovery from TB after successful ATT is accompanied by improvement of lipid parameters.