Clinical characteristics, common sites and drug resistance profile in culture-confirmed extrapulmonary TB/HIV co-infection patients, Southwest China.

Objectives: There are few reports on extrapulmonary tuberculosis/human immunodeficiency virus (EPTB/HIV) co-infection patients, especially the resistance profile of culture-confirmed EPTB. The purpose of our study was to analyse the clinical characteristics, common sites and drug resistance profile of culture-confirmed EPTB/HIV co-infection patients in Southwest China (2017-2020).

Methods: A total of 201 EPTB/HIV co-infection cases were selected for this study. Patient demographics and clinical characteristics were collected. Mycobacterium tuberculosis drug susceptibility testing (DST) was performed by the microporous plate method.

Results: Among 2884 culture-confirmed EPTB cases, patients were predominantly male (1921/2884; 66.6%) and the mean age was 31 years. There were 201 patients (7.0%) with EPTB/HIV co-infection, among which 170 (84.6%) were male and the mean age was 42 years (range 13-86 years). During the 7-year study period, the mean number of EPTB/HIV co-infection cases was 29 per year (range 12-49 per year) at the studied institution. Diarrhoea, headache and fever were the most common presenting symptoms. DST showed resistance to any anti-TB drug in 62 isolates (30.8%), while multidrug-resistant TB and extensively drug-resistant TB were found in 14 (7.0%) and 10 (5.0%) cases, respectively. The distribution of EPTB tissue type was mainly meningeal and lymphatic, but varied between the sexes.

Conclusion: The immune level of EPTB/HIV co-infected patients was low and most were in advanced-stage AIDS. Patients were mainly young males and the site of EPTB was mainly meningeal and lymphatic. The most common symptoms were diarrhoea, headache and fever. High rates of drug resistance were found.