Tuberculosis in Solid-Organ Transplant Recipients in Turkey: Meta-Analysis From the Tuberculosis Study Group of Turkish Transplantation Society, Solid Organ Transplantation Infections

Objectives: Tuberculosis risk in solid-organ transplant recipients is more than the general population, although tuberculosis incidence has been reported to decrease 5% in the last decade in Turkey. In Turkey, solid-organ transplants started in 1975; however, routine pretransplant tuberculosis risk screening programs are still not established. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis of tuberculosis prevalence, clinical forms, and prognosis of tuberculosis in solid organ transplant recipients. Materials and Methods: We searched PubMed, Web of Knowledge, Google Scholar, EBSCOhost, and Scopus databases in English and Turkish Medical Index of Turkish Academic Network and Information Center, Turkish Citation Index, Turkish Medline, Central Thesis of ULAKBIM databases in Turkish (from inception until December 2018) for national and international reference lists of all relevant papers. We used standard methodological procedures (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses 2009). Results: We found 199 published studies in English and 26 in Turkish. After exclusion of noneligible studies, there were 10 retrospective research articles and 16 case reports. There were 148 (3.2%) tuberculosis cases with 4553 solid-organ transplant recipients (4031 renal, 522 liver). Of the tuberculosis cases, 50 (33.8%) were pulmonary, 21 (14.2%) were pulmonary and extrapulmonary, 13 (8.8%) were miliary, 27 (18.2%) were disseminated, and 37 (25.0%) were extra pulmonary tuberculosis cases involving a maximum of 2 organs. There were 19 cases (12.8%) of graft lost. Of the patients with tuberculosis, 34 (19.9%) died resulting from either tuberculosis or other reasons. Conclusions: In this meta-analysis, most of the centers did not perform pretransplant risk evaluations; every center had different clinical procedures and follow-ups. Tuberculosis prevalence in solid-organ transplant recipients differs according to study population. Case reports were mostly about extrapulmonary tuberculosis. All such patients should be followed-up by a standard regimen during pretransplant and posttransplant periods. Prospective studies should be considered.