Epidemiological profile of extrapulmonary tuberculosis and its association with diabetes in tertiary care center in Northern Kerala

Background: India accounts for 24% of the global TB burden and 29% of deaths. Although HIV is considered the most potent risk factor for TB, the high prevalence of diabetes mellitus in the world and its effect on TB burden is greater than HIV infection. DM is common in the south Indian state of Kerala with a prevalence of 16% to 20%. Objectives of current study were to describe the epidemiological profile of EPTB cases diagnosed in a tertiary care center in northern Kerala and to find the association between EPTB and DM cases.Methods: A record-based descriptive study. All TB cases from first January 2019 to December 2021 at the Government medical college Kannur Pariyaram were the study population. Data was collected from the Nikshay portal, treatment register and CBNAAT register maintained in DOTS center, Pariyaram. The data were analysed using MS Excel and SPSS 26. The Chi-square test was applied to find an association between variables. p<0.05 is considered statistically significant.Results: Of the 882 cases included in the study, 476 (53.96%) were having PTB and 406 (46.03%) were having EPTB. Among males PTB (358, 59.3%) and among females EPTB (160 ,57.6%) were more prevalent (p<0.001). In the younger age group EPTB and in the older age group PTB were more reported (p<0.001). Among EPTB, the majority of the cases (66.5%) belong to the age group 21-60 years. Smokers among PTB and EPTB were 78 (16.4%) and 33 (8.1%) respectively.Conclusions: Female gender and younger age were more associated with EPTB compared to PTB.DM and smoking were more associated with PTB compared to EPTB. Common sites of EPTB were the lymph node, abdominal, pleural, and spine.