Mortality among tuberculosis cases in Victoria, 2002–2013: case fatality and factors associated with death
OBJECTIVE: To assess case fatality rates (CFRs) and factors associated with death in a cohort of TB cases notified between 2002 and 2013.
DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. Cases who died untreated or during treatment were reviewed to determine whether TB was a primary cause of, contributed to or was unrelated to death. Descriptive and multivariate analyses were used to compare demographic, clinical and pathological characteristics.
RESULTS: Of 3956 cases, 198 (5.0%) died of any cause. TB was the primary cause of death in 99 cases (50.3%) and contributed to death in a further 34 cases, giving a TB-related CFR of 3.4%. In multivariate analysis, TB-related mortality reduced over time, and was positively associated with male sex, older age, history of substance use and disseminated or meningeal TB. Factors associated with survival included having a history of past travel to or residence in a high TB risk country, lymph node TB or extra-pulmonary TB manifestations, excluding meningeal, genitourinary, pleural and lymphnode TB.
CONCLUSIONS: TB CFRs in this setting are among the lowest reported globally. TB mortality steadily decreased from 2002 to 2013.
Keywords: TB-related deaths; case fatality rate; epidemiology; risk factors
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: *Victorian Tuberculosis Program, Melbourne 2: †Department of Health and Human Services, Melbourne 3: *Victorian Tuberculosis Program, Melbourne, ‡Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Publication date: 01 April 2016
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