Association Between Tuberculosis and Smoking

Background: the association between smoking and tuberculosis (tb), which has been proven in multiple studies with different study population ethnicity, has not yet re- ceived sufficient attention in terms of tb control. objectives: the aim of the present study was to determine the association between tb and cigarette smoking in southeastern iran, an endemic area for tuberculosis. patients and methods: this prospective case-control study conducted at a university- affiliated hospital (boo-ali hospital, zahedan, and southeastern iran) from march 2007 to march 2012 enrolled 253 tb patients and 312 healthy controls. factors including his- tory of cigarette smoking, duration of smoking, number of cigarettes smoked per day, consumption of other drugs (parenteral and non-parenteral), and family history of tu- berculosis and smoking, were evaluated in both cases and controls. univarate and multi- variate logistic regressions were performed to compare tb cases and controls. the odds ratio (or) and 95% confidence intervals (ci) were also estimated. results: the results of the study revealed a significant difference between tb and control groups in relation to smoking (p < 0.0001). in multivariate logistic regression, cigarette smokers were 3.1 (95% ci: 1.4-10.3) times more frequent in tb patients compared with con- trols. other factors that showed significant differences between tb patients and controls were the use of non-parenteral drugs (or = 3.6, 95% ci: 2.2-21.4), family history of tb (or = 6.6, 95% ci: 2.3-18.2), family history of smoking (or = 2.8, 95% ci: 1.1-8.4), and smoking history of more than 10 years (or = 1.6, 95% ci: 1.2-9.8). conclusions: the present study evidenced the association between tb and smoking. it is therefore recommended to include interventions for smoking cessation in the current tb control practice.