ArticlePloS one2017
Measuring mortality due to HIV-associated tuberculosis among adults in South Africa: Comparing verbal autopsy, minimally-invasive autopsy, and research data.
Article in PloS one, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Impact of diagnostic strategies for tuberculosis using lateral flow urine lipoarabinomannan assay in people living with HIV.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2021Pooled it
- Algorithm-guided empirical tuberculosis treatment for people with advanced HIV (TB Fast Track): an open-label, cluster-randomised trial.The lancet. HIV · 2020Trial
- Review
- What are our options for mortality data collection and how can they provide HIV-specific information?Journal of public health in Africa · 2025Review
- Frequency of fungal pathogens in autopsy studies of people who died with HIV in Africa: a scoping review.Clinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases · 2024Article
- Concordance between MITS and conventional autopsies for pathological and virological diagnoses.International journal of legal medicine · 2024Article
- COVID-19 mortality sentinel surveillance at a tertiary referral hospital in Lusaka, Zambia, 2020-2021.PLOS global public health · 2024Article
- Validation of physician certified verbal autopsy using conventional autopsy: a large study of adult non-external causes of death in a metropolitan area in Brazil.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Feasibility of Cell-Free DNA Collection and Clonal Immunoglobulin Sequencing in South African Patients With HIV-Associated Lymphoma.JCO global oncology · 2021Article
- The evolution of minimally invasive tissue sampling in postmortem examination: a narrative review.Global health action · 2020Review
- Mortality and risk of tuberculosis among people living with HIV in whom TB was initially ruled out.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Incidence of Tuberculosis in Systemic Necrotizing Vasculitides: A Population-Based Study From an Intermediate-Burden Country.Frontiers in medicine · 2020Article
- Lessons learnt conducting minimally invasive autopsies in private mortuaries as part of HIV and tuberculosis research in South Africa.Public health action · 2019Article
- Unmasking the hidden tuberculosis mortality burden in a largeThe European respiratory journal · 2019Observational
- Ultrasound-guided minimally invasive autopsy as a tool for rapid post-mortem diagnosis in the 2018 Sao Paulo yellow fever epidemic: Correlation with conventional autopsy.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2019Observational
- A decade of antiretroviral therapy in Uganda: what are the emerging causes of death?BMC infectious diseases · 2019Article
- HIV-attributable causes of death in the medical ward at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, South Africa.PloS one · 2019Article
- Socio-anthropological methods to study the feasibility and acceptability of the minimally invasive autopsy from the perspective of local communities: lessons learnt from a large multi-centre study.Global health action · 2019Article
- Pathology-Based Research in Africa.Clinics in laboratory medicine · 2018Review
- Performance of verbal autopsy methods in estimating HIV-associated mortality among adults in South Africa.BMJ global health · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe World Health Organization (WHO) aims to reduce tuberculosis (TB) deaths by 95% by 2035; tracking progress requires accurate measurement of TB mortality. International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes do not differentiate between HIV-associated TB and HIV more generally. Verbal autopsy (VA) is used to estimate cause of death (CoD) patterns but has mostly been validated against a suboptimal gold standard for HIV and TB. This study, conducted among HIV-positive adults, aimed to estimate the accuracy of VA in ascertaining TB and HIV CoD when compared to a reference standard derived from a variety of clinical sources including, in some, minimally-invasive autopsy (MIA). METHODS AND
findingsDecedents were enrolled into a trial of empirical TB treatment or a cohort exploring diagnostic algorithms for TB in South Africa. The WHO 2012 instrument was used; VA CoD were assigned using physician-certified VA (PCVA), InterVA-4, and SmartVA-Analyze. Reference CoD were assigned using MIA, research, and health facility data, as available. 259 VAs were completed: 147 (57%) decedents were female; median age was 39 (interquartile range [IQR] 33-47) years and CD4 count 51 (IQR 22-102) cells/μL. Compared to reference CoD that included MIA (n = 34), VA underestimated mortality due to HIV/AIDS (94% reference, 74% PCVA, 47% InterVA-4, and 41% SmartVA-Analyze; chance-corrected concordance [CCC] 0.71, 0.42, and 0.31, respectively) and HIV-associated TB (41% reference, 32% PCVA; CCC 0.23). For individual decedents, all VA methods agreed poorly with reference CoD that did not include MIA (n = 259; overall CCC 0.14, 0.06, and 0.15 for PCVA, InterVA-4, and SmartVA-Analyze); agreement was better at population level (cause-specific mortality fraction accuracy 0.78, 0.61, and 0.57, for the three methods, respectively).
conclusionsCurrent VA methods underestimate mortality due to HIV-associated TB. ICD and VA methods need modifications that allow for more specific evaluation of HIV-related deaths and direct estimation of mortality due to HIV-associated TB.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.