Who are the patients with extrapulmonary tuberculosis?

Introduction: tuberculosis (tb) remains a major global public health problem and 20% of all cases are extrapulmonar. the purpose of this study was to identify risk factors associated with extrapulmonar tuberculosis. methods: we carried out a transversal study which included all patients with extrapulmonary tuberculosis registered in a tb reference center in northern portugal,between january 2008 and january 2012. we evaluated demographic data,comorbidities,bcg vaccination and previous tuberculosis treatments. multivariable logistic regression was used to identify independent risk factors (p < 0.05). results: among the 386 patients studied,260 (67.4%) had pulmonary tuberculosis (ptb) and 126 (32.6%) extrapulmonary tb (eptb). age over 40 years old (or = 2.09; 95%ci: 1.29-3.38),female gender (or = 1.63; 95%ci = 1.02-2.6) and hiv infection (or = 2.72,95%ci = 1.25-5.93) were independent risk factors for eptb. alcoholism (or = 2.22,95%ci: 1.00-4.95) was associated with higher risk for ptb. previous liver disease (or = 22.30; 95%ic: 1.89-263.57) was an independent risk factor for peritoneal tb. hiv co-infection (or = 12.97; 95%ic: 1.71-48.42) and the presence of previous tb treatment (or = 7.62; 95%ic: 1.00-57.9) increase the risk of disseminated disease. conclusion: we identified independent risk factors for eptb. recognizing risk factors associated with eptb is essential for suspicion of disease and may help make an accurate diagnosis. © 2014 sociedade portuguesa de pneumologia.