Long-term infectious morbidity of offsprings delivered to women with tuberculosis

Objective
Tuberculosis is a rare infectious disease in the Western world. The purpose of the current study was to examine a possible association between maternal tuberculosis and long-term infectious morbidity of the offspring.

Study Design
A population-based cohort analysis was performed, including all singleton deliveries occurring between 1991-2014, at a single tertiary medical center. The primary exposure was maternal tuberculosis. Offspring of mothers without tuberculosis comprised the comparison (unexposed) group. The main outcome evaluated was infectious morbidity of the offspring up to the age of 18 years, pre-defined by ICD-9 codes associated with hospitalizations of the offspring. A Kaplan-Meier survival curve was used to compare cumulative incidence of infectious morbidity.

Results
During the study period 249,800 deliveries met the inclusion criteria, of which 0.016% (n= 40) were born to mothers with tuberculosis. Long-term infectious morbidity was comparable between the groups (10.0% and 11% in offspring to women with and without tuberculosis; P = 0.835, Table). Likewise, the Kaplan-Meier survival curve did not demonstrate a significantly higher cumulative incidence of infectious morbidity in offspring of women with tuberculosis (log rank p=0.811, Figure).

Conclusion
In our population, and limited by the low occurrence of the disease, offsprings of women with tuberculosis are not at an increased risk for long-term infectious morbidity.