Materials and methods
Study setting and population
This study was conducted at Chiang Rai Prachanukroh Hospital
(CPH) where the health insurance system covers treatment
and health service costs of HIV and TB infection for all Thai
citizens. The inclusion criteria were: (1)TB-HIV co-infected
patients who were registered for TB treatment at CPH from
October 2005 to September 2008 and died during TB treatment,
(2) both sputum smear positive and negative TB, (3) both pulmonary
and extra-pulmonary TB. We screened cases in the TB
register by the TB treatment outcome of “death”. We followed
up every case from the time of TB diagnosis until death. The
exclusion criterion was a lack of medical records to review the
cause of death. There was a total of 361 eligible cases by inclusion
criteria; however, 30 cases were without medical records
and therefore excluded. The final analysis included 331 cases.