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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Nov 1.
Published in final edited form as: Int J Tuberc Lung Dis. 2020 Nov 1;24(11):1225a–11225. doi: 10.5588/ijtld.20.0578

Response to Correspondence: The impact of smoking on TB treatment outcomes includes recurrent TB

E Y Wang 1,2, I B Ahluwalia 3, S R Mase 4
PMCID: PMC8127982  NIHMSID: NIHMS1698934  PMID: 33172540

Dear Editor,

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the Correspondence by Drs. Chiang and Bam1 with regards to recurrent TB as a treatment outcome associated with smoking. We appreciate their interest in our article and their questions concerning the three manuscripts that were not included in our meta-analysis.2 The first, by Balian et al.2 was not identified in our updated search in August of 2017. The two other articles, by Masjedi et al.3 and Leung et al.,4 were excluded from our meta-analysis as they included former smokers in their smoking definitions and models. Our meta-analysis attempted to focus solely on current smokers and we excluded articles that specifically identified their exposure group as including former smokers. However, we agree that former smoking may be an important risk factor to consider in future research regarding smoking and TB treatment outcomes.

We also concur with the conclusion that recurrent TB is an important treatment outcome that should be considered in the context of smoking behavior. This was not explored in our meta-analysis, but we encourage others to include this in future research and reviews of this topic.

Conflicts of interest:

EYW reports a student stipend from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health (New York, NY, USA), grants, and an appointment in the Research Participation Program from CDC (Atlanta, GA, USA) during the conduct of the study. The remaining authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Footnotes

Publisher's Disclaimer: Disclaimer: The contents of this correspondence are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the CDC or the US Department of Health and Human Services, US Government.

References

  • 1.Chiang C-Y, Bam TS. The impact of smoking on tuberculosis treatment outcomes includes recurrent tuberculosis Int J Tuberc Lung Dis 2020; 24: 1224–1225. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 2.Wang EY, Arrazola RA, Mathema B, et al. The impact of smoking on tuberculosis treatment outcomes: a meta-analysis. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis 2020; 24: 170–175. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
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  • 5.Leung CC, et al. Smoking adversely affects treatment response, outcome and relapse in tuberculosis. Eur Respir J 2015; 45: 583–585. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

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