SettingsKerala State, India has reported the greatest dual burden of Tuberculosis (TB) and Diabetes Mellitus (DM). Malappuram district in Kerala has monitored and recorded DM status and its control from 2010 under Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program (RNTCP).ObjectivesTo assess, under programme conditions, comprehensiveness of recording DM status among TB cases and the TB treatment outcomes among DM patients (disaggregated by glycemic control) and compare with-non DM patients.DesignThis retrospective record review included 3,116TB patients from April 2010 to September 2011.DM was defined as per international guidelines and TB treatment outcomes were categorized as favourable(cured and treatment completed) and unfavourable(death, default, failure and transfer out). Relative Risk (RR) and 95% confidence intervals(CI) were calculated to assess the risk of unfavourable outcomes.ResultsDM status was recorded in 90% of TB cases and 667 (24%) had DM. 17% of DM patients and 23% of patients with unknown DM status had unfavourable outcomes but this difference was not statistically significant. Unadjusted RR for poor glycemic control or unknown control status for unfavourable outcome were (2.00; 95% CI 0.97–4.13) and (2.14; 95% CI 1.11–4.13).ConclusionThis study could not confirm an adverse association between DM or its control during treatment and the course of response to TB treatment.DM screening in TB cases and recording of DM care needs to be improved to enable more conclusive evidence.

Routine HIV testing of TB suspects was feasible and yielded a large number of HIV cases in absolute terms and would increase district HIV case finding by 51%. The number of patients needed to be HIV tested to find a previously undetected HIV case among TB suspects was greater than for TB cases but was potentially acceptable. Given heterogeneity of HIV epidemic in India, broader surveillance is required before national policy decision.

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