Assessment of Lipid Profile in Patients With Pulmonary Tuberculosis: An Observational Study

Background: Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes tuberculosis (TB), an infectious lung disease. There is mounting evidence linking low lipid levels to a variety of human diseases, including TB. Cholesterol, mainly due to its involvement in heart disease, gets more attention in recent years. The objectives of the study were to look into the link that connects hypolipidemia to the existence of pulmonary/extrapulmonary TB; we have tried to find the link in relation to patients who have been recently diagnosed with TB as well as in those who are having TB in the long term. Materials and methods: An observational study was performed on TB patients attending respiratory medicine at the Saveetha Medical College and Hospital, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, from February 2021 to January 2022, and their lipid levels were tested from patients with consent and correlated. Student's t-test was applied to the obtained data. To convey quantitative data, measurements such as mean along with standard deviation were applied, and a p-value of 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: This research included 80 subjects, 40 of whom were diagnosed with TB, and the rest (40 controls) were deemed healthy. The age group with the highest low lipid levels in pulmonary TB was 40-50 years. A chi-square test of association was conducted; this test revealed that the fraction of TB patients having lower than normal levels of total cholesterol (p = 0.0001), triglyceride level (p = 0.006), high-density lipoprotein (p = 0.009), low-density lipoprotein (p = 0.006), and body mass index (p = 0.000) was statistically significantly higher in contrast to the control group. Thus, there was a significant correlation between a higher prevalence of hypolipidemia in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) and normal healthy individuals. Conclusions: We observed a strong relationship between hypolipidemia and TB, indicating that patients with low lipid levels tend to have severe inflammation as compared to patients with normal lipid levels.