Radiological Evidence Suggestive Of Tuberculosis In Chest X-Rays Taken For Covid Care In Tamil Nadu

Abstract


Background : The number of new TB cases notified has decreased in the country since the beginning of the COVID pandemic due to various reasons. India has a high burden of TB cases and latent TB infection. Chest X ray (CXR) taken at COVID care centres can serve as an important source to look for radiological evidence of TB in these patients. About 10570 CXR were collected from Mobile X ray units deployed in COVID care centre during the second wave of the pandemic. We used artificial intelligence (AI) to read these CXR. A total of 969 (9.2%) and 168 (1.6%) were suggestive of COVID-19 and Pulmonary TB respectively. This serves as an evidence to look for TB in CXR at any given opportunity even if the CXR are taken for other purposes enabling picking up of TB cases at every given opportunity as we move towards TB elimination.

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