Table 1.
Patient symptoms and medical history, associated with physicians' clinical suspicion of tuberculosis among smear-negative PTB suspects
| Clinical Suspicion of Tuberculosis Group Smear-Negative PTB suspects | ||||
| Symptoms and Medical History | N = 151 (%) | Low (N = 80) | Intermediate (N = 25) | High (N = 46) |
| Suggestive chest radiographya | 42 (27.8%) | 0 | 6 | 36 |
| Weight loss | 81 (53.6%) | 37 | 12 | 32 |
| Cough | 135 (89.4%) | 73 | 23 | 39 |
| Chest pain | 89 (58.9%) | 48 | 15 | 26 |
| Dyspnea | 105 (69.5%) | 57 | 17 | 31 |
| Tuberculosis exposure at home | 74 (49.0%) | 37 | 14 | 23 |
| Hospital admission in the last 24 months | 53 (35.1%) | 24 | 10 | 19 |
| Hepatitis | 31 (20.5%) | 12 | 5 | 14 |
| Immune suppression b | 51 (33.8%) | 17 | 13 | 21 |
a: intake chest radiograph was suggestive of classical tuberculosis (upper-lobe fibrocavitary) disease.
b: includes patients positive for the human immunodeficiency virus (27.2%) and those with a history of steroid use or cancer chemotherapy (3.6%)