Evaluation of different types of chest symptoms for diagnosing pulmonary tuberculosis cases in community surveys

Prevalence of tuberculosis (TB) is an important epidemiological index to measure the load of the disease in a community. A series of disease surveys were undertaken in rural community in Tiruvallur district in Tamilnadu, south India

To investigate the yield of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) cases by different symptoms status and suggest predominant symptoms for detection of cases in the community based surveys.

Three disease surveys were conducted during 1999-2006, in a random sample of 82,000 adults aged > or = 15 years to estimate the prevalence and incidence of pulmonary TB. All subjects were screened for chest symptoms and chest radiography. Sputum examination was done among those who were either symptomatic or abnormal on X-ray or both. Cases observed through symptom inquiry were included for analysis.

In survey-I, 65.6% had cough of > or = 14 days and yielded 79.1% of the total cases. In surveys II and III, symptomatic subjects with cough contributed 69.5% and 69.2% of the cases respectively. In survey I, 26.8% had symptoms without cough but with at least chest pain > or = 1 month contributed 8.4% of total cases. The corresponding proportions in subsequent surveys were 29.3, 11.5%; and 23.4, 11.2% respectively. The number of symptomatics without cough and chest pain but with fever > or = 1 month was negligible.

The relative importance of cough as a predominant symptom was reiterated. The yield of pulmonary TB cases from symptomatics having fever of > or = 1 month was negligible. Fever may be excluded from the definition of symptomatics for screening the population in community surveys.