Socio-Demographic and Clinical Findings between Pulmonary Tuberculosis and Bacterial Pneumonia

Abstract

Background: Pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) is a chronic infection of the lung caused by Mycobacterium Tuberculosis. On the other hand, bacterial pneumonia is another potentially fatal infection of the lower respiratory tract caused by various bacteria. In diagnosing and treating those diseases, a clear concept of the clinical features of those diseases is very important. Aim of the study: To assess the socio-demographic and clinical features between pulmonary tuberculosis and bacterial pneumonia patients in Bangladesh. Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study that was conducted in the Department of Medicine, Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH), Dhaka, Bangladesh, from March 2018 to September 2020. Confirming by proper investigations, 100 pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patients in group I and 100 bacterial pneumonia patients in group II were taken as the study subjects. A purposive sampling method was used in subject selection. Collected data were encoded as well as inputted into SPSS software 16.0 programs and analyzed. Categorical data were presented as frequency and percentage; continuous data were presented as mean ± standard deviation (SD). In all cases, a P-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The mean age of group I patients was 42.59 ±12.73 years, while in group II, patients were 54.02±9.49 years. In analyzing the signs and symptoms of the patients in both groups, we observed that 100% of PTB patients had cough while 81% had sputum, 73% had fever, and 46% had weight loss. Among pneumonia patients, 94% had a fever, 91% had a cough, 58% had sputum and 56% had chest pain. In comparing the ESR, CRP levels, Mantoux test results between group I (Pulmonary tuberculosis) and group II (Bacterial pneumonia), we found statistically significant correlations. Conclusion: Cough sputum and fever are common symptoms for both pulmonary tuberculosis and bacterial pneumonia patients, but weight loss was a symptom of pulmonary TB. ESR levels,