Bronchiectasis due to pulmonary tuberculosis in a Hospital in the Peruvian Jungle.

Bronquiectasias por tuberculosis pulmonar en un Hospital de la Selva Peruana

Introduction: Pulmonary tuberculosis is a disease with high prevalence and incidence in Peru, presenting in the San Martín region an annual incidence of 34.3% per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018. Half of these patients throughout their lives will develop a complication due to pulmonary tuberculosis, bronchiectasis being the most frequent. Objective: To know the characterization of patients diagnosed with bronchiectasis who had a history of pulmonary tuberculosis treated in the pulmonology office of Hospital II-2 Tarapoto, from January 2017 to December 2020.

Materials and methods: Study of 50 cases of bronchiectasis secondary to treated and cured pulmonary tuberculosis in patients treated at the pneumology clinic of Hospital II-2 Tarapoto, between January 2017 and December 2020. Document adapted from the degree work presented by the author to  qualify for the title of surgeon.

Results: The most frequent age is average adults aged between 30 and 64 (68%), being more frequent in females (56%), with BMI at normal weight (68%). Fifty-two percent of the patients had no concomitant disease at the time and 60% of the patients were diagnosed with bronchiectasis secondary to tuberculosis 1 to 11 years after discharge from antituberculosis treatment. The main symptoms were productive cough (72%), chest pain (42%) and dyspnea (40%), while the signs were crackling sounds (28%). The most used diagnostic method was tomography (42%), evidencing that the right lung and upper lobes present greater involvement (39.1%) and the most frequent type of bronchiectasis pattern determined by tomography was cylindrical (61.9%). To determine the pathogens, sputum culture was used (92%), obtaining a greater growth of Candida albicans (32%), followed by Enterobacter gergoviae (28%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (19%).

Conclusions: The age between 30 to 64 years was the most frequent in the diagnosis of bronchiectasis due to pulmonary tuberculosis, the period of diagnosis of bronchiectasis after successful tuberculosis treatment was in a range of 1 to 11 years and the most frequent pathogens were Candida. albicans, Enterobacter gergoviae, and Klebsiella pneumoniae.