Estimation of Ten-Year Survival of Patients with Pulmonary Tuberculosis Based on the Competing Risks Model in Iran

Tuberculosis (TB) is a chronic bacterial disease, which despite the presence of effective drug strategies, still remains a serious health problem worldwide. Estimation of survival rate is an appropriate indicator for prognosis in patients with pulmonary TB. Therefore, this research was designed with the aim of accurate estimation of the survival of patients by taking both the death event and relapse into consideration.
Based on a retrospective cohort study, information of 2,299 patients with pulmonary TB that had been referred to and treated in Masih Daneshvari Hospital from 2005 to 2015 was reviewed. To estimate the survival of patients with pulmonary TB, the competing risks model, which considered death and relapse as competing events, was used. In addition, the effect of factors affecting the cumulative incidence function (CIF) of death event and relapse was also examined.
The effect of risk factors on the CIF of death events and relapse showed that patients’ age, marital status, contact with TB patients, adverse effect of drugs, imprisonment and HIV positivity were factors that affected the CIF of death. Meanwhile, sex, marital status, imprisonment and HIV positivity were factors affecting the CIF of relapse (P The use of competing risks model in survival analysis of patients with pulmonary TB with consideration of competing events, enables more accurate estimation of survival.