Radiographic Aspects of Multidrug-Resistant Pulmonary Tuberculosis at the CSDT of Lubumbashi University Clinics

Multidrug-resistant pulmonary tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is an infectious disease whose early diagnosis and management still cause problems in countries with very limited resources. Knowing the great consequences of this disease in the life of an individual, we estimated to make an epidemiological and radiographic inventory of this devastating entity at the CSDT university clinics of Lubumbashi. Materials and methods: We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional study including 63 multidrug-resistant tuberculosis subjects aged between 15 and 83 years old at the diagnostic health center and treatment of the university clinics of Lubumbashi (CSDT) from December 2016 to July 2020. The data were analysed using Epi- info 7 and SPSS v 20 software. Results: The average age was 37.4±14.0 years. Male sex was the most dominant with 60.3%; the commune of Kampemba was the most affected (41.7%). HIV co-infection was very low at 4.8%. 90.5% of patients had experienced a therapeutic failure and 9.5% had acknowledged having direct contact with a multi-resistant tuberculosis patient. Chest radiographic lesions were dominated by reticular infiltrations (66.7%) and fibrosis lesions (60.3%). Conclusion: In view of the results demonstrating that the radiographic pulmonary lesions were dominated by reticular infiltrations and pulmonary fibrosis lesions, the discussion with the other authors highlights the late nature of the diagnosis of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Lubumbashi, thus exposing our population to irreversible and disabling pulmonary pathologies.