A Nomogram Model for Mortality Risk Prediction in Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients Subjected to Directly Observed Treatment Shortcourse (DOTS)

We analyzed the risk factors of mortality for patients with pulmonary tuberculosis under the Directly Observed Treatment Shortcourse (DOTS) and established a predictive nomogram for the risk of mortality. The retrospective cohort analysis was conducted on the treatment outcomes of 11207 tuberculosis patients in the tuberculosis management information system in Tianjin from 2014 to 2019. Based on the multivariable unconditional logistic regression, we analyzed the risk factors of mortality in patients with pulmonary TB and established the death risk prediction nomogram. We further applied cross-validation and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve to explore the efficiency of the nomogram. There were 10,697 patients in the survival group and 510 in the mortality group who had successfully initiated DOTS, and the mortality rate was 4.55%. Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that age, male, relapse cases, first sputum positivity, patient delay, and HIV-positive were independent risk factors for pulmonary TB death. The calibration curve shows that the average absolute error between the predicted mortality risk and the actual death risk is 0.003. The ROC curve shows that the area under the curve where the line-up model predicts the risk of death is 0.816 (95% CI: 0.799∼0.832). The nomogram model based on independent risk factors of mortality in TB patients shows good discrimination and accuracy, with potentially high clinical value in screening patients with a high risk of death, which could be useful for setting the interventional strategies in patients with tuberculosis who had successfully initiated DOTS.