Original Paper Med Princ Pract 2003;12:30–33 DOI: 10.1159/000068153 Deaths in Patients with Pulmonary Tuberculosis: An Analysis of a Chest Diseases Hospital in Istanbul, Turkey Zafer Kartaloglu Ahmet Ilvan Erol Kilic Oguzhan Okutan Kamil Cerrahoglu Faruk Ciftci GATA Camlica Chest Diseases Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey Received: December 22, 2001 Revised: May 4, 2002 Zafer Kartaloglu, Assoc. Prof. GATA Camlica Chest Diseases Hospital Acibadem, Uskudar 81020 Istanbul (Turkey) Tel. +90 216 3257250, Fax +90 216 3257257, E-Mail zkartaloglu@hotmail.com ABC Fax + 41 61 306 12 34 E-Mail karger@karger.ch www.karger.com © 2003 S. Karger AG, Basel 1011–7571/03/0121–0030$19.50/0 Accessible online at: www.karger.com/mpp Key Words Tuberculosis W Fatality W Mortality W Death Abstract Objective: To evaluate the medical records of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis in order to determine the inhospital mortality rate. M aterials and M ethods: Medi- cal records of 22,651 patients with pulmonary tuberculo- sis admitted to Gulhane Military Medical Academia, Camlica Chest Diseases Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey from 1977 to 1999 were examined. Results: Of the 22,651 patients, 133 (0.58%) died: 117 male and 16 female, mean age 41.5 B 20.7 years. The mean length of hospital stay was 15.8 B 25.9 days and it increased yearly (p = 0.004). There was no significant difference in hospital mortality rate of tuberculosis within years. Forty-nine patients had chronic and/or far advanced tuberculosis, 36 of them had concomitant diseases. Thirteen patients had miliary and/or tuberculous meningitis, 3 multi drug- resistant tuberculosis, another 3 had pneumothorax, and 2 empyema. These patients had significantly lower prog- nostic nutritional index than those patients who recov- ered from pulmonary tuberculosis (p = 0.025). Conclu- sion: Inhospital mortality rate of tuberculosis did not change in the last 23 years. We suggest that pulmonary tuberculosis will continue to be a significant cause of death and therefore important health care problem for Turkey in the 21st century. Copyright © 2003 S. Karger AG, Basel Introduction Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the oldest known diseases. Although the causal agent was known since 115 years ago and effective chemotherapeutic regimens for its treatment have existed for 53 years, TB continues to be a serious public health problem. Seven to 8 million people around the world become sick with TB each year. Nearly 1.6 mil- lion, 3 million and over a quarter of a million TB cases occur per year in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, respectively. Developed countries have partly solved the problem of TB, but it is still a challenge for developing and undeveloped countries. Three million deaths occur annually from TB worldwide and it is known that 98% of these occur in underdeveloped or developing countries [1]. In Turkey, reports have shown that mortali- ty rate has decreased from 55/100,000 in the sixties to 2.3/ 100,000 in 1995 [2]. The decline in TB epidemic in this century had been largely due to improved living standards and, eventually,