Estudo sobre contatos de pacientes com tuberculose pulmonar na região metropolitana de Goiânia
Data
2011-07-07
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Universidade Federal de Goiás
Resumo
Tuberculosis (TB) affects millions of people every year and it is estimated that one third of world‟s population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). The identification of infection and monitoring of close contacts of TB patients would contribute to disease dissemination control. In the present study the epidemiological characteristics that may facilitate contact‟s infection were evaluated. Additionally, the antibody profile against Hspx from Mtb, among individuals that were in frequent contact of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patients, was investigated as a marker for risk of active disease development. All participants were submitted to tuberculin skin test (TST) and their blood were harvested to determine the antibody profile (IgM/IgG - ELISA). Forty-five PTB patients and 177 contacts were followed for one year. During the follow-up period, only daily contact with patient was associated with positive TST at the moment of diagnosis. Two TST positive contacts developed active PTB, eight contacts converted their TST to positive, 6 individuals presented the booster effect, 44 remained TST negative and 20 dropped out of the study. The IgM-Hspx levels were 0,841±0,40 for TST positive contacts, 0,807±0,32 for TST negative, 0,732±0,218 for TST converted and 0,961±0,48 to contacts that boosted their TST. The IgG-Hspx levels were 0,242±0,10 for TST positive contacts, 0,237±0,10 for TST negative, 0,140±0,02 for TST converted and 0,255±0,22 for contacts that boosted their TST, with significant statistical difference (p=0,019). Our data show that daily contact is associated with TST positivity and the risk of disease development and antibodies against Hspx (both, IgM and IgG) were not associated among recent latently infected contacts of PTB patients.