Clinical Characteristics of Tuberculosis in Liver or Heart Transplant Recipients. |
Hoon Jung, Yeon Mok Oh, Sang Do Lee, Woo Sung Kim, Dong Soon Kim, Won Dong Kim, Jae Joong Kim, Sung Gyu Lee, Tae Sun Shim |
1Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, and Division of Cardiology, Asan Medical Center, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. shimts@amc.seoul.kr 2Division of Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery and Liver Transplantation, Asan Medical Center, Department of Surgery, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Asan Medical Center, Seoul, Korea. |
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Abstract |
BACKGROUND Post-transplant tuberculosis (TB) is a serious complication in solid organ transplant recipients worldwide, However there is little or no data on TB in liver or heart transplant recipients in Korea. METHODS: The incidence and clinical characteristics of TB of 730 patients who had undergone a liver transplant in a university hospital in Korea between 1992 and 2004, and 110 heart transplant recipients in the same period, were reviewed retrospectively. RESULTS: The incidence of TB was 1.5%(11/730) and 2.7%(3/110) in the liver and heart transplantation, respectively. The median time from the transplant to the development of TB was 8.4 months(1.0-30.8). and the mean time from the symptoms to the diagnosis of TB was 2.1+/-3.6 months(0.3-13.2). Nine patients (65%) had pulmonary TB and five (35%) had extrapulmonary TB. The leukopenia and positive HbeAg at the baseline, post-transplant diabetes mellitus, and chronic rejection were associated with the development of TB in the liver transplant recipients. Ten patients were treated with a 4-drug standard regimen for a mean duration of 7.8+/-3.5 months. One patients died of TB. CONCLUSION: The incidence of TB in liver or heart transplant recipients was similar to that reported in other countries with a similar TB-burden. |
Key Words:
Tuberculosis, Liver transplantation, Heart transplantation |
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