04 Dec Smoking and tb treatment response

A study conducted in Brazil shows that cigarette smoking reduces the response to treatment of tuberculosis measured as the sputum culture becoming negative after 2 months. The effect remained after adjusting for differences between patients in disease severity and alcohol abuse. It was associated with the number of cigarettes smoked daily at the time of diagnosis, but not with the total number of cigarettes that the patients had smoked over the years. This suggests that the reduction in treatment response is due to immunological changes brought about by smoking rather than to cumulative damage to lung tissue. Studies are needed to further elucidate these effects and to establish whether smoking cessation can improve tuberculosis treatment outcomes.

Delayed culture conversion due to cigarette smoking in active pulmonary tuberculosis patients
Authored by: Renee Nijenbandring de Boer, João Baptista de Oliveira e Souza Filho, Cobelens Frank, Daniela M. De Paula Ramalho, Pryscilla Fernandes Campino Miranda, Karina de Logo, Hedi Oliveira, Eliene Mesquita, Martha Maria Oliveira, Afrânio L. Kritski
in: Tuberculosis, 2013
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S147297921300187X