ral ssBioMed CentBMC Public Health Open AcceResearch article Review of cigarette smoking and tuberculosis in China: intervention

Background: As a risk factor of tuberculosis (TB), tobacco smoking has increased substantially over the past three decades, especially in developing countries. However, the association between smoking and TB, which has been shown to exist in different studies with different ethnic background, has not yet received sufficient attention in terms of TB care standards and research in China. Methods: An observational study was conducted in two rural areas of China. A total of 613 TB patients frequency matched with 1226 controls were interviewed by using a structured questionnaire. The associations between cigarette smoking and risk of TB were estimated by computing odds ratios (ORs) and 95 % confidence intervals (95 % CIs) from logistic regression model. Patients ' smoking behavior and patterns of smoking cessation were followed after TB diagnosis. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards model was applied to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95 % confidence intervals (95 % CIs) in analyzing the risk factors for smoking relapse. The Kaplan-Meier estimate was computed to plot the ability of smoking-free after cessation among different groups, with the Log-rank test being used to compare the difference