Prevalence of Latent Tuberculosis in Contacts of Pulmonary Tuberculosis
patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Abstract
Introduction: Tuberculosis is still a leading cause of morbidity and
mortality in the world, especially the low and middle income countries.
While a lot is being done on the programmatic level, the burden of the
disease is still underestimated owing to problems in diagnostics and
infrastructure. Objective: The objective of this study was to estimate
the prevalence of Latent Tuberculosis infections in the pediatric
household contacts of patients of pulmonary tuberculosis in India.
Methods: We searched electronic databases PubMed, EMBASE and Ovid for
relevant articles. Search of grey literature and unpublished data was
also done.The protocol of the study was registered in the PROSPERO. The
quality of included studies was assessed using the Hoy et, al.
checklist. The data extraction from relevant studies and subsequent data
synthesis and analysis was done. The calculation of the pooled
prevalence of LTBI, and the construction of galbraith plot for
heterogeneity was done using STATA software. Result: The searches
yielded 600 studies out of which 19 were included in the review. The
pooled prevalence of LTBI among household contacts was
39.27[26.05-52.49]. On subgroup analysis, the prevalence of LTBI
from studies with only pediatric contacts included was
26.73[17.70-35.76].There was significant heterogeneity amongst the
various studies with overall I2=99.7%. A Galbraith Plot was constructed
which also shows significant heterogeneity among the different studies.
All studies had a low risk of bias with a score of 3 or less, except
one, which had a moderate risk of bias with a total score of 4.