Table 1.

Population characteristics.

	TB patients		Health controls
	New tuberculosis (n = 19)	Recurrent tuberculosis (n = 18)	(n = 20)
Age; median (range in years)	45.1 (14–75)	46.6 (15–77)	35.1 (25–66)
Gender
Male	10	15	12
Female	9	3	8
Male/Female	1.1	5.0	1.5
Body mass index (BMI)	19.1 ± 2.6*	19.0 ± 1.4*	22.8 ± 1.5
Smear positive (%)	7 (36.8)	14 (77.8)	–
Sputum-culture positive (%)	11 (57.9)	16 (88.9)	–
Drug Susceptibility Pattern (%)
MDR-TB	0	6 (33.3)	–

Data are expressed as the mean ± SD. MDR-TB, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. The U Mann–Whitney test was used to evaluate the two groups.

^*P < 0.01, significant difference in comparison with the healthy control group.