Tuberculosis as primary cause of death among AIDS cases in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

SETTING: Data from the mortality database, Rio de Janeiro City (RJC) Health Department, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. OBJECTIVES: To determine the role played by tuberculosis (TB) in Brazil's human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) positive population, we investigated the frequency of TB as the primary cause of death among HIV-positive subjects in RJC. DESIGN: Information about acquired immune-deficiency syndrome (AIDS) deaths from 1996 to 2005 in individuals aged >12 years was obtained from the Mortality Information System (SIM), and the cause of death was classified according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), through primary causes coded in Chapter I - B20 to B24 (HIV disease). RESULTS: There were 8601 AIDS-related deaths in RJC between 1996 and 2005. TB was the primary cause of death in 9.0% of all AIDS-related deaths, while Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) accounted for 4.7%. TB cases erroneously classified under other infectious diseases may have contributed to an underestimation of the number of TB deaths among HIV-positive patients. CONCLUSION: Our study showed that TB is the leading cause of AIDS-related deaths and is responsible for twice as many deaths as PCP, in a scenario of free access to antiretrovirals. The potential benefits of TB preventive treatment and of the availability of highly active antiretroviral treatment could not be established by this analysis.