[Incidence of tuberculosis in Poland 2004 and its trends]

Tuberculosis has been a major public health problem in Poland for many decades. The aim of this investigation was to evaluate incidence of TB in Poland in 2004 and to examine trends of TB incidence in last decade. In 2004. decrease of tuberculosis notification rates in Poland has continued. In this year 9.493 new tuberculosis cases notified in Poland. Incidence rate was 24.9 per 100.000 population with the large differences in notification rates between voivodships/geographic region/ from 14.5 (The West) to 36.0/100.000 The East). Between 1994-2004 notification rates decreased by 42%. New cases represented 87.8% of all TB cases. Pulmonary cases represented 91.6% of all cases of which 59% were bacteriologically confirmed (smear and/or culture positive). 37% of all TB pulmonary cases were sputum smear positive, which is rather low but similar to previous years. Low proportion--8.4% of extrapulmonary cases which is observed for many years may indicate inadequacies in diagnosis and registration of this TB form. Pediatric TB cases--incidence 1.9--represented 1.3% of all cases notified in Poland. The incidence of tuberculosis increases with age from 1.9 in children up to 51.7 among 65 and older patients. Median age of TB patients is between 50-54 years. The incidence of men 34.1 is two times higher than in woman (16.2) and in rural population it is near the same: 25.5 and in urban 24.5. Among of all the TB pulmonary cases there were 395 cases with resistance to at least one drug. In these cases was about 100 MDR cases. Registered 260 TB cases among prisoners--2.7% of overall cases, and 16 TB cases were among foreigners.

In last decade decrease of TB has continued. The incidence of tuberculosis in Poland was about two times higher than mean incidence for Enlarge European Union. The distance between Poland and EU countries with lowest incidence is estimated for 20-25 years.