Clinical Study The Effect of Low CD4+ Lymphocyte Count on the Radiographic Patterns of HIV Patients with Pulmonary Tuberculosis among Nigerians

Copyright © 2013 Christopher Affusim et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective. To assess the radiographic features in patients with Human Immunode�ciency Virus (HIV) complicated by pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB), and the association with CD4 lymphocyte count and sputum smear.Method. A prospective study was carried out on 89 HIV positive patients with PTB. e demographics, smoking history, sputum smear result, chest radiographic �ndings and CD4 lymphocyte count were documented. Results. Out of the 89 patients recruited in the study, 41 were males and 48 were females. Eighteen (18) patients had typical radiographic features, 60 patients had atypical radiographic features while only 11 of them had normal radiographic �lms. Sixty eight (68) patients had CD4 count <200 cells/mm3, 19 patients had CD4 count between 200–499 cells/mm3, while only 2 patients had CD4 count from 500 cells/mm3 upwards. e association between low CD4 count and radiographic �nding was statistically signi�cant,