Spectrum of immunodeficiency in HIV-1-infected patients with pulmonary tuberculosis in Zaire.

Tuberculosis (TB) is the most common opportunistic infection in African patients who die from AIDS, yet the stage of immunodeficiency at which TB develops is uncertain. We studied the immune status of HIV-infected outpatients with pulmonary TB in relation to their clinical presentation in a cross-sectional study of 216 HIV-seropositive and 146 HIV-seronegative ambulatory incident cases of smear-positive and culture-positive pulmonary TB in Kinshasa, Zaire. HIV-seropositive and seronegative patients had median CD4 lymphocyte counts of 316.5/microL and 830.5/microL, respectively. Of the HIV-seropositive patients, 32.9% had less than 200 CD4 lymphocytes/microL, 37% between 200 and 499, and 30.1% 500 or more. Clinical AIDS, as defined by the WHO clinical case-definition or a modified version, was of similar limited use as a predictor of immunodeficiency. Among HIV-seropositive patients, oral candidosis, lymphopenia, a negative tuberculin purified protein derivative test, and cutaneous anergy were strongly associated with CD4 counts of less than 200/microL, and seemed to be better markers of immune dysfunction. We conclude that pulmonary TB develops across a broad spectrum of HIV-induced immunodeficiency and that a diagnosis of pulmonary TB is of limited use as a marker of stage of HIV disease in African HIV-infected outpatients.