Negative predictors of survival in HIV-infected patients with culture-confirmed pulmonary tuberculosis.

We performed a retrospective study based on chart review of 118 HIV-infected patients with culture-confirmed pulmonary TB, in which M. tuberculosis isolates were tested for drug susceptibility. Patients were enrolled in the period January 1987 to December 1996 and followed until September 1997. The median survival for the entire cohort was 15.2 months with a 1-year survival rate of 57%. Prior AIDS-defining illness, low CD4 count (< 200/mm3), not having received antituberculous therapy with at least two drugs to which M. tuberculosis was susceptible in vitro, starting within four weeks of diagnosis, treatment duration of less than three weeks and multidrug resistant tuberculosis were each independently associated with decreased survival in multivariate analysis.