<p>Evaluation of Peripheral Blood Parameters of Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients at St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Comparative Study</p>

Abstract

Background and Aim: Pulmonary tuberculosis is still among the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Ethiopia. Different hematological abnormalities are commonly associated with pulmonary tuberculosis even though inconsistent results have been described. Hence, this study aimed to evaluate the hematological parameters of pulmonary tuberculosis patients visited St. Paul's hospital millennium medical college, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Methods: From April to September 2018, a comparative cross-sectional study was conducted among pulmonary tuberculosis patients (n=40) and control patients (n=40). About 5 mL venous blood and 2-5 mL sputum samples were collected and examined by Cell Dyn 1800 hematology analyzer and cultured using Mycobacteria Growth Indicator Tube (BACTEC MGIT 960), respectively. Independent t-test was performed with the help of SPSS version 20 software, and p-value < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant difference. Results: The proportion of male to female in the pulmonary tuberculosis patients (PTB) and the control patients was 1.7 (25/15). Two-sample independent t-test revealed that the mean values of hemoglobin level (P=0.002), hematocrit (P=0.018), mean cell hemoglobin concentration (P=0.001) and relative lymphocyte percentage (P=0.036) of PTB were significantly lower than the control group. Moreover, significantly higher mean values were also observed in total white blood cell count (P=0.004), platelet count (P<0.001) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (P<0.001). Among the hematologic abnormalities detected, thrombocytosis and anemia presented in 65% and 25% of PTB patients, respectively. Conclusion: Statistically significant mean differences were observed in hemoglobin, hematocrit (HCT), MCHC, relative lymphocyte percentage, WBC, platelet count, relative neutrophil percentage and ESR values. So, the utilization of such data is important in providing preliminary information for diagnosis and management of pulmonary tuberculosis. In fact, a further large scale study is needed to substantiate this finding.

Haemato-biochemical changes in tuberculosis infected and healthy Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) from South India

“…There was a significant thrombocytosis in TB infected group which is in accordance with the study by Rathod et al (2017) who speculated the potential use of thrombocyte count as a marker for TB and found that 75 per cent of the TB infected patients had thrombocytosis. The ESR values obtained from the study had significant difference with that of healthy controls which is in agreement with the previously published studies (Oliva et al, 2008;Rohini et al, 2016;Kahase et al, 2020). Mandal and Chaven (2016) suggested that the increment in the ESR values were a common observation in active TB cases.…”

Evaluation of prognostic significance of hematological profiles after the intensive phase treatment in pulmonary tuberculosis patients from Romania

“…Similar results with our findings about WBC have previously reported that anti-TB chemotherapy can reverse WBC count that is increased in PTB subjects due to the elevated count of polymorphonuclear leukocytes and macrophages during bacterial infection [ 40 , 43 , 44 ]. However, other studies have shown no statistically significant difference on WBC count before initiation and after the completion of intensive phase of treatment [ 45 , 46 ].…”

“…Furthermore, there are reports that documented a significantly higher platelet count in the PTB than the control groups while others showed a significant decrement of platelet count which was explained by the early diagnosis of patients [ 43 ]. Notably, it seems that the anti-inflammatory effect of the platelets during TB infection is triggered both by inducing platelet-leukocyte crosstalk and the platelet induced shift to a more anti-inflammatory response [ 54 ].…”

Amyloid deposition in granuloma of tuberculosis patients: A pilot study

“…Haematological parameters like WBC count, platelet count, RBC count, haemoglobin and erythrocyte sedimentation rate are often seen altered in tuberculosis patients [43-46]. In our study, the blood profile of all the TB patients including those suspected for amyloidosis (Table 2) also reflected similar alteration in these inflammatory markers.…”