Primary Drug-Resistance Pattern and Trend in Elderly Tuberculosis Patients in Shandong, China, from 2004 to 2019

With an aging population, China is facing a huge burden of elderly patients with drug resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), which has become a significant obstacle for the global TB control. There is still little study on DR-TB in the elderly in China so far. Thus, more research on the epidemiological characteristics and trend of primary DR-TB among the elderly will be necessary.

A retrospective study was conducted in Shandong, China from 2004 to 2019. We collected 12,661 primary TB cases, of which 4368 elderly (≥60 years) primary TB cases were involved. Clinical characteristics including age, sex, cavity, smoking, drinking, comorbidity and drug susceptibility data were collected from 36 TB prevention and control institutions of Shandong Province. Sputum samples were collected by each surveillance site, and examined in the TB Reference Laboratory of SPCH. Descriptive statistical analysis, chi-square and linear regression were used for analyzing.

Among 4368 elderly patients with primary TB, the DR-TB and multi-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) accounted for 17.19% and 2.29%, respectively. During 2004-2019, the proportions of MDR-TB, polydrug resistant tuberculosis (PDR-TB), rifampin (RFP)-resistance increased by 160.00%, 18.18%, 231.82%, respectively and the rate of DR-TB among elderly patients with primary cavitary TB increased by 255%. Among the elderly with primary DR-TB during 2004-2019, the proportion of male (from 85.19 to 89.06), cavity (from 7.41 to 46.88), RFP-resistance (from 3.70 to 21.88), and streptomycin (SM)-resistance (from 37.04 to 62.5) increased significantly (P<0.05). And the proportion of female (from 14.81 to 10.94), non-cavity (from 92.59 to 32.81), INH-resistance (from 66.67 to 57.81) decreased significantly (P<0.05).

Among the elderly, the proportions of MDR-TB, PDR-TB, RFP-resistance and cavitary DR-TB increased significantly. The pattern of DR-TB changed from female, non-cavity and INH-resistant groups to male, cavity, RFP or SM-resistant groups. For a better control on the elderly DR-TB in the future, we should pay more attention to male, smoking, drinking, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and diabetes subgroups and take targeted measures to control these subgroups.