BACKGROUND: Despite effective treatments, tuberculosis-related mortality remains high among patients requiring admission to the intensive care unit (ICU).OBJECTIVE: To determine prognostic factors of death in tuberculosis patients admitted to the ICU, and to develop a simple predictive scoring system.METHODS: A 10-year, retrospective study of 53 patients admitted consecutively to the Hôpitaux de Paris, Hôpital Lariboisière (Paris, France) ICU with confirmed tuberculosis, was conducted. A multivariate analysis was performed to identify risk factors for death. A predictive fatality score was determined.RESULTS: Diagnoses included pulmonary tuberculosis (96%) and tuberculous encephalomeningitis (26%). Patients required mechanical ventilation (45%) and vasopressor infusion (28%) on admission. Twenty patients (38%) died, related to direct tuberculosis-induced organ failure (n=5), pulmonary bacterial coinfections (n=14) and pulmonary embolism (n=1). Using a multivariate analysis, three independent factors on ICU admission were predictive of fatality: miliary pulmonary tuberculosis (OR 9.04 [95% CI 1.25 to 65.30]), mechanical ventilation (OR 11.36 [95% CI 1.55 to 83.48]) and vasopressor requirement (OR 8.45 [95% CI 1.29 to 55.18]). A score generated by summing these three independent variables was effective at predicting fatality with an area under the ROC curve of 0.92 (95% CI 0.85 to 0.98).CONCLUSIONS: Fatalities remain high in patients admitted to the ICU with tuberculosis. Miliary pulmonary tuberculosis, mechanical ventilation and vasopressor requirement on admission were predictive of death.
Determination of Isoniazid Acetylator Phenotype and its Clinical Implication in Rwandan Tuberculosis Patients
