A systematic review of delay in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis

Storla, Dag Gundersen; Yimer, Solomon; Bjune, Gunnar Aksel

doi:10.1186/1471-2458-8-15

BMC Public Health

Table 2 Median diagnostic delay for pulmonary TB patients in 58 studies

From: A systematic review of delay in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis

Country	Year	First author	DD Pat	DD HCP	DD total	Ref no.
Tanzania	2000	Wandwalo	15	120	136	[29]
United Kingdom	2003	Lewis	63	35	126	[7]
Burkina Faso	2006	Ouedraogo	*	*	120	[49]
Ethiopia	1999	Madebo	*	*	120	[5]
Ghana	1998	Lawn	28	56	120	[11]
Malawi	1988	Nkhoma	*	*	120	[54]
Thailand	1991	Tesana	*	*	120	[55]
Thailand	1993	Pungrassami	*	*	120	[45]
Romania	1989	Anastasatu	69♠	34♠	107♠	[33]
Iran	2002	Masjedi	13♠		93♠	[51]
Vietnam	1999	Long	54♠	29♠	93♠	[30]
Pakistan	2006	WHO	9	87	91	[27]
Malaysia	1994	Hooi	15	35	90	[21]
United States	2005	Golub	32	26	89	[22]
Iran	2006	WHO	24	42	88	[27]
Malaysia	1997	Liam	14	49	88	[36]
Botswana	1998	Steen	21	35	84	[26]
New Zealand	2000	Calder	7	49	84	[44]
Uganda	2005	Kiwuwa	14	63	84	[23]
Spain	2003	Altet Gomez	43♠	39♠	82♠	[24]
Ethiopia	2005	Yimer	15	61	80	[6]
Nepal	2001	Yamasaki-Nakagawa	23	29	79	[14]
Japan	1990	Niijima	*	*	78†	[46]
Mongolia	1996	Enkhbat	29	35	78	[35]
Nigeria	2004	Odusanya	56	7	70	[19]
South Africa	2001	Pronyk	28	7	70	[8]
Australia	2001	Ward	30	11	66	[20]
Thailand	2006	Rojpibulstit	31	20	66	[9]
China	2004	Bai	30	24	65	[28]
Italy	2006	Gagliotti	7	36	65	[38]
Spain	1996	Franco	23	32	64	[12]
Turkey	2004	Güneylioglu	18♠	13♠	64♠	[16]
Ethiopia	2002	Demissie	60	6	64	[18]
Norway	2006	Farah	28	33	63	[17]
United States	1998	Asch			60▲	[42]
India	2002	Rajeswari	20	23	60	[25]
Korea	1992	Mori	54♠	14♠	60♠	[31]
Peru	1996	Chavez	*	*	60	[53]
The Gambia	2001	Lienhardt	*	*	60	[32]
Zambia	2001	Needham	*	*	60	[10]
Cambodia	2006	Saly	*	10	58	[50]
Somalia	2006	WHO	53	7	58	[27]
Malawi	2000	Salaniponi	*	*	56	[47]
Syria	2006	WHO	31	15	55	[27]
China	2005	Xu	10	39	50	[37]
Turkey	2006	Okur	30	19	49	[34]
United Kingdom	2007	Rodger	*	*	49	[40]
Australia	1996	Pirkis	*	*	44	[15]
Taiwan	2005	Chiang	7	23	44	[56]
Egypt	2004	WHO	12	18	42	[27]
Japan	2002	Sasaki	21	7	42	[52]
Iraq	2004	WHO	31	2	36	[27]
United States	1999	Sherman	21	6	35	[39]
Yemen	2004	WHO	28	4	35	[27]
China	2006	Deng	19	5	31	[41]
France	1996	Gulbaran			30♠	[48]
Thailand	2001	Ngamvithayapong	11	8	*	[13]
Pakistan	2001	Sadiq			21€	[57]

The studies are listed in descending order of the median diagnostic delay.
DD Pat (Diagnostic Delay by the Patients): Time from debut of symptoms to first visit to health care provider
DD HCP (Diagnostic Delay by the Health Care Providers): Time from first visit to a HCP to the making of a proper diagnosis
DD Total (Total Diagnostic Delay): Time from debut of symptoms to the making of a proper diagnosis
* Data not obtainable
† Average calculated by the reviewers from separate numbers for female and male
♠ Mean
▲ 80% percentile
€ 77% percentile

Back to article page

ISSN: 1471-2458

Contact us

Submission enquiries: bmcpublichealth@biomedcentral.com
General enquiries: ORSupport@springernature.com