A retrospective study of tuberculosis prevalence amongst patients attending a tertiary hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Tuberculosis (TB) is a public health challenge that affects all genders and age groups and is a single leading infectious disease killer globally. We retrospectively investigated the prevalence of TB and anti-TB drug resistance among patients treated at the Prince Sultan Military Medical City (PSMMC) between the years 2000 and 2017. Patient demographic variables and drug susceptibility test results were obtained from TB notification records located in the TB laboratory at PSMMC. A total of 58,141 records were reviewed of which 1123 (2%) specimens were positive for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Of the positive, 621 (55%) were from pulmonary specimens. Males over the age of 15 years accounted for 60% of the positive specimens. Drug resistance to at least one drug was detected in 90 (8%) of which 60 (5.3%), 24 (2%) 6 (0.5%) patients were mono-drug-resistant, poly-drug resistant and multidrug resistant (MDR-TB) respectively. Resistance to isoniazid and streptomycin were the most frequently found among first-line tuberculosis drugs, accounting for 4.5% and 3.8% of drug resistance cases respectively. Our findings show low prevalence of tuberculosis and multidrug resistant TB among patients treated at PSMMC over a 17-year period. Nationwide assessment is needed to get a clear picture of the TB burden across Saudi Arabia and inform national policies for eradication of TB.