Epidemiological monitoring of tuberculosis in a general teaching hospital

To describe the epidemiological monitoring of exposure to tuberculosis in a hospital environment and to analyze the profile of the disease in a general teaching hospital.

A descriptive and retrospective study of tuberculosis cases diagnosed between 2000 and 2006, with the determination of indicators of morbidity and mortality, which were compared with the general population of patients treated at the hospital and with the hospital employees who developed active tuberculosis.

There were 763 patients who were treated for active tuberculosis (mean, 109 patients/year), 481 (63.1%) of whom were male. Most of the patients were in the 30-59 year age bracket. Tuberculosis that was exclusively pulmonary or extrapulmonary predominated. However, among the hospitalized patients, the combination of pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis, as well as exclusively noninfectious tuberculosis, predominated. Comorbidities were more prevalent among the hospitalized patients and among those who evolved to death. Only 52.8% of the cases treated at the hospital were reported. The overall hospital indicators showed longer length of hospital stay and greater mortality among the patients with tuberculosis. The incidence and prevalence show that there was a high risk of exposure to tuberculosis in the hospital during the period studied.

The proposed indicators can potentially help standardize epidemiological monitoring procedures for nosocomial tuberculosis, and the epidemiological profile described in this study can contribute to a better understanding of the situation of tuberculosis in Brazil.