Mycobacterium tuberculosis at a comprehensive cancer centre:: active disease in patients with underlying malignancy during 1990-2000

Thirty HIV-seronegative cancer patients with active tuberculosis were evaluated. Eighteen (60%) were immigrants, 19 (63%) had haematological malignancy, and fever was the most common presentation (97%). Of 19 (63%) patients with pulmonary tuberculosis, 11 (58%) were misdiagnosed initially as suffering from cancer following radiography. Death was attributed to tuberculosis for six (21%) of 29 patients who received anti-mycobacterial therapy. All four patients who had received high-dose systemic corticosteroids within 4 weeks of diagnosis of infection died, whereas two (8%) deaths occurred in 25 individuals without corticosteroid exposure (p < 0.001; OR 8.67). At this institution, active tuberculosis was rare, and was seen mostly in immigrants. Recent high-dose corticosteroid therapy is a significant predictor of mortality in cancer patients with tuberculosis.