Association of tobacco smoking and tuberculosis patient in Kuala Lumpur / Moh Syafiq Rosli

Tuberculosis occurs in every part of the world. In 2010, the largest number of new Tuberculosis cases occurred in Asia, accounting for 60% of new cases globally. The cross sectional survey was done to see the association of tobacco smoking and tuberculosis in Kuala Lumpur. Random sampling was taken from Institute of Respiratory Medicine, Kuala Lumpur. Statistical test were used with p-value s 0.05 were considered statistically significant at 95% level of confident interval. A total of 115 TB patients were recruited in this study. Of this, 36(31%) were smokers and 78(67%) were non-smokers. TB patients who were smoking are more commonly associated with males rather than females. There were significant relationships between the smoking status of TB patients with symptoms of tuberculosis. The symptoms are coughing for more than 2 weeks, coughing with blood, coughing with phlegm, weight loss and loss of appetite. Smokers were significantly more likely to have moderately advanced lung lesions but are less likely to present no lesion on chest X-ray. Smoking status had a significant effect on the severity of clinical, microbiological and radiological presentations resulting in more aggressive course of the disease compared to non-smokers.