Clinical features in pulmonary tuberculosis patients combined with diabetes mellitus in China: An observational study

Background Consideration of the huge burden both of tuberculosis (TB) and diabetes mellitus (DM) in China as a major public health issue, research focused on the relationship between DM and TB was needed. Methods An observational study was conducted (2015-2018) in regional representative TB and lung disease hospitals in China. All the adult patients newly diagnosed of pulmonary TB were consecutively recruited in this study. Results A total of 1417 patients newly diagnosed pulmonary TB was recruited in this research, 312 (22.02%) of them had the history of type 2 DM. Majority of patients were with fatigue, loss of weight and mild anaemia in TB-DM group compared with TB-NDM group (58.3% vs 47.5%, p = .001; 8.21 ± 6.2 vs 5.74 ± 4.0 kg, p Conclusions The clinical features of TB-DM patients are associated with cavities in CT scan, rather than DST results. It can help us recognition confounding variables, also may influence the treatment strategy and outcomes in TB-DM patients.