DOI 10.1155/IDOG/2006/18452 Clinical Study Menstrual Disorders in Nongenital Tuberculosis

Menstrual patterns differ even in nongenital tuberculosis. Our objective is to determine whether nongenital tuberculosis makes menstrual dysfunction, before and sustain after treatment. Menstrual patterns were compared in women with pulmonary or extrapulmonary but nongenital tuberculosis with healthy nursing students and also with themselves, before and after treatment in a retrospective cohort study. Subjects were selected by convenient nonrandomized sampling but control groups were selected by random allocation among volunteers of nursing students. Case and control subjects were matched in age group. Menstrual patterns including amount, duration, interval, cessation of period, any menstrual irregularity, and pelvic pain were evaluated. Among 100 cases of proven tuberculosis, 90 patients had pulmonary and 10 cases had extrapulmonary tuberculosis. Secondary amenorrhea (P ≤.001, RR: 22), spotting during menstrual period (P ≤.0001, RR: 4.5), decreasing in amount (P ≤.001, RR: 7.8), shorter duration of menstrual period (P ≤.001, RR: 12), and pelvic pain (P ≤.001, RR: 8.6) were more prevalent and significantly different in the cases compared to control subjects (with CI:95 % and P<.001), but excessive or prolong vaginal bleeding was not observed. Menstrual disorders occur even in nongenital tuberculosis, but it is manifested with cessation or decrease in menstrual bleeding flow and period. Copyright © 2006 M. Fallahian and M. Ilkhani. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.