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Bardenheier BH, Pavkov ME, Winston CA, Klosovsky A, Yen C, Benoit S, Gravenstein S, Posey DL, Phares CR. Prevalence of Tuberculosis Disease Among Adult US-Bound Refugees with Chronic Kidney Disease. Journal of immigrant and minority health. 2019 Dec 1; 21(6):1275-1281.
The association between chronic kidney disease (CKD) and tuberculosis disease (TB) has been recognized for decades. Recently CKD prevalence is increasing in low- to middle-income countries with high TB burden. Using data from the required overseas medical exam and the recommended US follow-up exam for 444,356 US-bound refugees aged? = 18 during 2009-2017, we ran Poisson regression to assess the prevalence of TB among refugees with and without CKD, controlling for sex, age, diabetes, tobacco use, body mass index ( kg/m), prior residence in camp or non-camp setting, and region of birth country. Of the 1117 (0.3%) with CKD, 21 (1.9%) had TB disease; of the 443,239 who did not have CKD, 3380 (0.8%) had TB. In adjusted analyses, TB was significantly higher among those with than without CKD (prevalence ratio 1.93, 95% CI: 1.26, 2.98, p? < 0.01). Healthcare providers attending to refugees need to be aware of this association.