Relationship between Diagnosis Period and Internal and External Air Quality in Patients with Tuberculosis

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between bacteriological case definitionsand indoor and outdoor air quality parameters in tuberculosis (TB).Materials and Methods: A total of 200 patients with TB diagnosed and treated in our hospital during 2012-2018 were included to this study. The air monitoring measurement parameters of the National Air QualityNetwork [particulate matter 10 (PM10), sulfur dioxide (SO2), air temperature, air pressure, and relativehumidity] for the same time period were obtained from the web page http://laboratory.cevre.gov.tr/Default.ltr.aspx.Results: Of the 200 patients, 62.5% (125) were males and 37.5% (75) were females. The rate of diagnosisbased on culture and smear positivity was 48.4% (31), which was significantly higher than that in the clinic[10.9% (7)] among patients who used stove for warming. The rate of diagnosis based on culture and smearpositivity [52.1% (25)] was significantly higher than that in the clinic [8.3% (4)] among patients who were exposed to biomass. The univariate analysis revealed no significant independent effect of warming and biomassuse on case definition. According to the case definitions, the mean values of PM10, SO2, and temperature inthe diagnosed month showed no statistically significant difference. The humidity level in the month was significantly higher, during which cases diagnosed using smear and culture positivity were compared with casesdiagnosed using only culture positivity (p=0.023).Conclusion: This study indicates that biomass used as a cooking fuel is a risk factor for pulmonary TB, implying that TB occurrence can be reduced significantly by lowering or preventing the exposure to cookingsmoke emitted from biomass fuel.WOS:0005181794000172-s2.0-8508191585