Screening for Pulmonary Tuberculosis among the Elderly and Alcoholics

Abstract

The objective of this study was to screen for pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) among the elderly and alcoholics in Ban Tak and Sam Ngao Districts, Tak Province. It was conducted as a descriptive study from March to December 2015. Data were collected from a survey of which the activities included health education to the target populations, chest X-ray by a digital mobile X-ray van, 3 times of sputum smear microscopic examination in those with abnormal chest X-ray and cartridge-based nucleic amplification assay by GeneX-pert test. Frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were used for data analy-sis. It was found that, among 1,420 persons screened in the study, 83.2% were the elderly and 16.8% were alcoholics. About 53.7% were female and 46.3% were male. The mean age of of the target groups was 67.6 years old. Abnormal chest X-ray was found in 148 out of 1,420 screened persons (10.4%). All of them had negative-smear sputum but 7 (6.7%) had positive TB by GeneX-pert. The overall TB rate was 0.5% (7/1,420). The positive rates of TB were 0.4% (5/1,182) in the elderly and 0.8% (2/ 238) in the alcoholics. Clinical features of the 7 TB cases were dry cough (4 cases), hemoptysis (1 case), diabetes (2 cases) and weight loss (2 cases). Chest X-ray with infiltration was found in 4 of the 7 cases. All the 7 cases had negative HIV testing. In conclusion, TB screening among the elderly and alcoholics using health education, mobile chest X-ray, sputum smear examination in those with abnormal chest X-ray and by GeneX-pert should be useful for early detection of TB which can reduce the mortality and spread of the disease in the community.