Sociodemographic and Clinical Profile of Tubercular Meningitis Patients without Pulmonary Signs and Symptoms

Abstract

Background: Among the different forms of CNS tuberculosis, tubercular meningitis (TBM) is the most frequent one. Early diagnosis and treatment of tubercular meningitis (TBM) can give an excellent outcome with minimal residual morbidity. Sociodemographic and clinical findings of patients with or without pulmonary signs and symptoms may be useful for the early diagnosis and treatment of suspected TBM patients. Aim of the study: This study aimed to make a sociodemographic and clinical profile of tubercular meningitis patients without pulmonary signs and symptoms. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study that was conducted in the Department of Medicine, Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH), Dhaka, Bangladesh, from September 2020 to August 2021. A total of 77 diagnosed cases of tubercular meningitis without pulmonary signs and symptoms admitted to the mentioned hospital were included in this study as the study population. In sample selection, a purposive sampling technic was used. Along with the sociodemographic as well as clinical findings, all relevant information was recorded in a data collection sheet. After completion, data analysis was done by SPSS 23.0. Results: The mean age of our respondents was 37.93±11.8 years; 53.2% of them were male and 46.8% were female. The majority of the respondents were service holders (32.5%) and the majority (57.1%) of the patients had middle-family income. In this study, 61% of the study population had a family history of TB. As for the clinical features of TBM, we observed that all of the study subjects had a fever, 80.5% had a headache, 68.8% had altered sensation, 62.3% had anorexia and nausea, 55.8% had vomiting, 19.5% had convulsions and 15.6% had neck stiffness. The majority (46.8%) of the respondents had TBM Grade II. In total, 58.4% of the respondents had Mantoux test positive and 41.6%, whereas 36.4% showed chest X-ray positive for TB. Conclusion: The prevalence of tubercular meningitis without pulmonary signs and ........