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CDC finds TB and substance abuse closely linked in U.S. patients

Infection Control Weekly Monitor, January 28, 2009

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A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that about a fifth of people with tuberculosis (TB) in the United States also report abusing drugs or alcohol. Control efforts are often ineffective in controlling TB among patients who use illicit drugs or abuse alcohol, the study said.

Substance abuse is the most commonly reported behavioral risk factor among TB patients in the U.S., CDC researchers reported in the January 26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. The number of TB patients reporting substance abuse problems rose even higher when only U.S.-born patients are included.

Patients who abuse substances are also more contagious than others with the disease, and remain contagious longer because treatment failure presumably extends periods of infectiousness, researchers concluded. The study tracked 153,268 patients with TB in the United States from 1997 to 2006, accounting for nearly everyone age 15 and older with the disease during that timeframe. Researchers said 18.7 percent of those patients reported substance abuse, a rate which increased to 29% in patients born in the U.S.

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