ArticleBMC public health2014
Empirical treatment for TB in HIV: lessons from a cohort study of people living with HIV treated in Recife, Brazil.
Article in BMC public health, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Record linkage in tuberculosis epidemiological surveillance in Brazil: systematic methodological literature review.Revista brasileira de epidemiologia = Brazilian journal of epidemiology · 2026Pooled it
- Article
- Article
- Mortality Among People With HIV Treated for Tuberculosis Based on Positive, Negative, or No Bacteriologic Test Results for Tuberculosis: The IeDEA Consortium.Open forum infectious diseases · 2020Article
- Mortality in the first six months among HIV-positive and HIV-negative patients empirically treated for tuberculosis.BMC infectious diseases · 2019Article
- Point-of-care lateral flow assays for tuberculosis and cryptococcal antigenuria predict death in HIV infected adults in Uganda.PloS one · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death related to HIV worldwide. This study analyzes the survival of People Living with HIV (PLHIV) reporting cough without bacteriological confirmation of TB and identify factors associated with death.
methodsProspective cohort with a consecutive sample of PLHIV, aged ≥ 18 years. Patient inclusion criteria were complaint of current cough of any duration at the time of the first study interview or during their subsequent routine visits to health services and for whom AFB sputum smear was either negative or not performed during the whole follow-up period. Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate the probability of survival. We estimated the Hazard Ratio (HR) in bivariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses.
resultsMortality was 4.6 per 100 py; 73% were receiving HAART at recruitment. Average time from the first recorded date of cough until empirical treatment for tuberculosis was six months. Mortality was higher when the CD4 count was low (HR = 5.3; CI 95%: 3.2-9.0; p = 0.000), in those with anemia (HR = 3.0; CI 95%: 1.6-5.6; p = 0.001) and with abnormal chest X-rays (HR = 2.4; CI 95%: 1.4-4.0; p = 0.001). Mortality was higher in those receiving empirical TB treatment (HR = 2.4; CI 95%: 1.4-4.0; p = 0.002), but only in those with normal X-rays, no history of tuberculosis and no bacteriology requests. Empirical treatment for TB was more frequent in PLHIV with low CD4 counts, anemia, history of opportunistic infections, weight loss, previous tuberculosis, negative bacteriology test (as opposed to not having a test) and abnormal chest X-ray.
conclusionsHigher mortality in PLHIV reporting a current cough without bacteriological confirmation of tuberculosis was identified for those with a CD4 cell count <200, abnormal chest X-ray, anemia and empirical treatment for tuberculosis. Mortality was not significantly higher in those empirically treated for TB, who had three characteristics suggestive of the disease (abnormal chest X-ray, history of TB treatment, AFB sputum smear or M.tb culture testing). Routine cohorts are not an adequate setting to evaluate the impact of empirical treatment for TB on the mortality of PLHIV.
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