ArticlePloS one2020
Estimating the effect of pretreatment loss to follow up on TB associated mortality at public health facilities in Uganda.
Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effectiveness and Implementation of a Clinical Risk Score for Early Diagnosis of Tuberculosis in Uganda: A Pragmatic, Clustered Randomization Clinical Trial.Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2025Trial
- Effect of SMS Reminders, Telephone Calls, and Transport Incentives on Enhancing the Completion of Tuberculosis Diagnosis and Initiation of Treatment for Diagnosed Patients: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- Identifying mechanisms by which social determinants of health impact TB diagnostic evaluation uptake in Uganda: a qualitative study.International journal for equity in health · 2025Article
- Mortality disparities among children and adolescents with tuberculosis in Tanzania Mainland from January 2023 to December 2023: A retrospective cohort study.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Facilitators and barriers for completion of the diagnostic process among people with presumed tuberculosis in Central Uganda.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Patient preferences for empiric TB treatment initiation.The international journal of tuberculosis and lung disease : the official journal of the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease · 2025Article
- Pre-diagnosis and pre-treatment loss to follow-up and associated factors among patients with presumed tuberculosis and those diagnosed in Uganda.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- Predictive machine learning models for anticipating loss to follow-up in tuberculosis patients throughout anti-TB treatment journey.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Community tuberculosis screening, testing and care, Uganda.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2024Article
- Pre-treatment loss to follow-up in adults with pulmonary TB in Kenya.Public health action · 2024Article
- Cost-effectiveness of Low-complexity Screening Tests in Community-based Case-finding for Tuberculosis.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2024Article
- Reducing Initial Loss to Follow-up Among People With Bacteriologically Confirmed Tuberculosis: LINKEDin, a Quasi-experimental Study in South Africa.Open forum infectious diseases · 2024Article
- Interventions and implementation considerations for reducing pre-treatment loss to follow-up in adults with pulmonary tuberculosis: A scoping review.F1000Research · 2024Article
- Factors contributing to pre-treatment loss to follow-up in adults with pulmonary tuberculosis: a qualitative evidence synthesis of patient and healthcare worker perspectives.Global health action · 2023Review
- Health worker views on pre-treatment loss to follow-up in adults with pulmonary TB in Western Kenya.Public health action · 2023Article
- Early interactions with newly diagnosed TB patients in hospital can support linkage to care.Public health action · 2022Article
- TB testing in HIV-positive patients prior to antiretroviral treatment.The international journal of tuberculosis and lung disease : the official journal of the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease · 2022Article
- Article
- Mortality and associated factors among adult patients on tuberculosis treatment in Tanzania: A retrospective cohort study.Journal of clinical tuberculosis and other mycobacterial diseases · 2021Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
introductionTuberculosis (TB) mortality estimates derived only from cohorts of patients initiated on TB treatment do not consider outcomes of patients with pretreatment loss to follow-up (LFU). We aimed to assess the effect of pretreatment LFU on TB-associated mortality in the six months following TB diagnosis at public health facilities in Uganda.
methodsAt ten public health facilities, we retrospectively reviewed treatment data for all patients with a positive Xpert®MTB/RIF test result from January to June 2018. Pretreatment LFU was defined as not initiating TB treatment within two weeks of a positive test. We traced patients with pretreatment LFU to ascertain their vital status. We performed Kaplan Meier survival analysis to compare the cumulative incidence of mortality, six months after diagnosis among patients who did and did not experience pretreatment LFU. We also determined the health facility level estimates of TB associated mortality before and after incorporating deaths prior to treatment initiation among patients who experienced pretreatment LFU.
resultsOf 510 patients with positive test, 100 (19.6%) experienced pretreatment LFU. Of these, we ascertained the vital status of 49 patients. In the six months following TB diagnosis, mortality was higher among patients who experienced pretreatment LFU 48.1/1000py vs 22.9/1000py. Hazard ratio [HR] 3.18, 95% confidence interval [CI] (1.61-6.30). After incorporating deaths prior to treatment initation among patients who experienced pretreatment LFU, health facility level estimates of TB associated mortality increased from 8.4% (95% CI 6.1%-11.6%) to 10.2% (95% CI 7.7%-13.4%).
conclusionPatients with confirmed TB who experience pretreatment LFU have high mortality within the first six months. Efforts should be made to prioritise linkage to treatment for this group of patients. Deaths that occur prior to treatment initation should be included when reporting TB mortality in order to more accurately reflect the health impact of TB.
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