National Profile and Treatment Outcomes of Patients with Extrapulmonary Tuberculosis in Bénin

Background: In sub-Saharan Africa, there is a dearth of published literature on extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB). Objective: To describe demographic, diagnostic and HIV-status characteristics of patients with EPTB in Bénin, their treatment outcomes, and among those who completed their treatment in the Centre National Hospitalier de Pneumo-Phtisiologie (CNHP-P), the proportion whose bodyweight increased during treatment. Material and Findings: This was a retrospective cohort study with comparisons made between EPTB and new smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis (NPTB) patients diagnosed in the country from January to December 2011. There were 383 EPTB patients (9 % of all TB cases) with a mean age of 35 years, male/female ratio of 1.3 and important regional variation. There were significantly more females (p = 0.001), children,15years (p,0.001) and HIV-positive patients (p = 0.005) with EPTB compared with NPTB. Pleural effusion, spinal and lymph node tuberculosis accounted for 66 % of all EPTB. Children, 15 years represented 16 % of cases, with lymph node disease being most common among them (p,0.001). Of 130 EPTB patients registered in CNHP-P, 7 % had a confirmed bacteriological/histological diagnosis. There were 331 (86%) patients who successfully completed treatment. More patients with EPTB were lost-to-follow-up compared with NPTB (p,0.001) with all these patients from one region. The best treatment completion rates were in children,15 years (OR:3.5, 95%CI:1.0– 14.8) while patients with pleural effusion and ascites had the worst outcomes. Of 72 HIV-coinfected patients, 88 % were o