EVOLUTION OF ANAEMIA IN PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS PATIENTS ON ANTI-TUBERCULOSIS THERAPY
Williams Bitty Azachi*, Kanayo Eugene Ikeh and Bello Bashir
ABSTRACT
Anaemia of chronic disease (ACD) is a form of anaemia seen in chronic illnesses such as in active pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) patients. In such cases, iron is sequestered in macrophages limiting availability to invading organisms in a bid to control the infection. Our research bordered on finding out if the anaemia will be resolved as tuberculosis treatment proceeds, without need for iron-rich supplements. We recruited 110 active pulmonary tuberculosis patients and 110 age- and gender-matched apparently healthy controls to this study and compared their haemoglobin concentration values. The tuberculosis patients were further grouped into 3: Group 1 comprising of newly diagnosed patients before start of treatment; Group 2 comprised of TB patients 2 months after start of treatment, and Group 3 had patients 6 months after start of treatment. The haemoglobin concentration of patients in each group were compared to the controls. This study found a significantly lower haemoglobin concentration in TB patients across all age groups and gender when compared to the controls (P-value
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