Intestinal nematodes and pulmonary tuberculosis

We report a significantly higher prevalence of intestinal nematodes in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) compared to a matched control group: 33/57 (57.8%) in patients with TB and 18/86 (20.9%) in the control group; OR=5.19; 95% CI= 2.33-11.69; p=0.000). When TB patients eosinophilia was als...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ricardo Tristão-Sá, Rodrigo Ribeiro-Rodrigues, Luciléia T. Johnson, Fausto Edmundo L. Pereira, Reynaldo Dietze
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical (SBMT) 2002
Subjects:
Tuberculosis
Helminthiasis
Strongyloidiasis
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine
RC955-962
Arctic
Online Access:https://doaj.org/article/f1c428082e234f88ac9f5341ffbbee46
Description
Summary:We report a significantly higher prevalence of intestinal nematodes in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) compared to a matched control group: 33/57 (57.8%) in patients with TB and 18/86 (20.9%) in the control group; OR=5.19; 95% CI= 2.33-11.69; p=0.000). When TB patients eosinophilia was also significantly higher among those with intestinal parasites (69.8%) compared to those without this condition (45.6%). We hypothesized that the immune modulation induced by nematodes is a factor that enhances TB infection/progression and that eosinophilia seen in TB patients is a consequence of helminth infection.

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