Anti-tuberculosis, Drug-induced Hepatitis in Patients of Pulmonary Tuberculosis with Chronic HCV

OBJECTIVE:To determine the frequency of anti-tuberculosis drug-induced hepatitis in patients of pulmonary tuberculosis co-infected with chronic HCV.METHODOLOGY: This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted at Liaquat University Hospital after taking permission from the ethical review committee.124 patients, irrespective of gender, aged 20 or greater were selected through nonprobability convenience sampling, from December 2020 to February 2021.Patients of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB), who were sputum positive and co-infected with chronic Hepatitis C Virus HCV with normal Liver Function Test (LFT) were picked.Chronic HCV was evidenced by positive Anti HCV on ELISA.Alcoholics, HBsAG-positive patients, and persons with altered LFT before the start of Anti-tuberculosis treatment (ATT) were exempted from the study.If LFT after one week of treatment displayed a rise in bilirubin greater than 1.5 mg and or increase in Aspartate aminotransferase(AST) and Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) greater than 120 IU/L then patients were further followed and LFT repeated thrice on the 15 th day of holding the ATT.Drug-induced hepatitis was labeled when LFT normalize after 2 weeks of withholding treatment.All this data was itemized on proforma and analyzed through SPSS 17 software.RESULTS: Out of a total of 124 patients, 70 were male and 54 were female.Age varied from 20 to 60 years (mean age was 42.4 years) .37.9% of patients were more than 50 years of age.In this study, only 16.93% of patients developed ATT-induced hepatitis.CONCLUSION: Anti-tuberculosis-induced liver enzymes elevation is a common incident in inpatients of pulmonary tuberculosis co-infected with chronic HCV.