a seven year retrospective study on epidemiology and clinical characteristics of tuberculosis in iran

background: tuberculosis (tb) is a major worldwide public health problem. the incidence of tuberculosis has decreased in iran in recent years. however, despite this dramatic decline, tuberculosis is still considered to be a major health problem in iran. objectives: the aim of this study was to investigate the epidemiological situation and main characteristics of tuberculosis in iran. patients and methods: the present study was designed as a retrospective study. all tuberculosis patients were included in this study during a seven year period. patients were categorized into two groups: new and retreatment. the patients' information was extracted using a tuberculosis surveillance system. demographic (age, gender and place of birth) and clinical characteristics included type and site of the disease, treatment outcomes, human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) co-infection and anti-tb drugs resistance. results: a total of 6 489 tuberculosis cases were notified during the study period. extra-pulmonary tb was diagnosed in 30% of the cases. from 4633 pulmonary patients, 3009 new cases were categorized as smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis. outcome evaluations demonstrated that 72% of the smear positive pulmonary patients had been cured and 7.4% had completed the duration of treatment. co-infection of hiv existed in 3% of the patients. a drug susceptibility test was performed only for high risk patients, 34% of whom were resistant to at least one drug. conclusions: our findings suggest that neither a drug resistance phenomenon nor the hiv co-infection play a dominant role in the incidence of tuberculosis in iran. further investigation is needed to determine the cause of the relatively high incidence of tuberculosis and its risk factors in iran and finally considering the gap between the observed success rate and world health organization objectives, more accurate follow-up of patients is recommended in order to achieve complete treatment.