Demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis by smear status
| Characteristics | Total n | Smear status* | P value‡ | |
| Positive n (%) | Negative n (%) | |||
| Assessed, n | 313 | 151 | 162 | |
| Age | ||||
| 15–64 years | 248 | 120 (79.4) | 128 (79.0) | 0.38 |
| >64 years | 65 | 31 (20.6) | 34 (21.0) | |
| Sex | ||||
| Male | 173 | 86 (57.0) | 87 (53.8) | 0.56 |
| Female | 140 | 65 (43.0) | 75 (46.2) | |
| Population group† | ||||
| Foreign-born | 226 | 97 (64.3) | 129 (79.7) | 0.002 |
| Canadian-born | 87 | 54 (35.7) | 33 (20.3) | |
| Disease type | ||||
| New active | 280 | 135 (89.4) | 145 (89.5) | 0.97 |
| Relapse/retreatment | 33 | 16 (10.6) | 17 (10.5) | |
| HIV status | ||||
| Negative | 300 | 147 (97.4) | 153 (94.5) | 0.19 |
| Positive | 13 | 4 (2.6) | 9 (5.5) | |
*Smear-positive patients had to have one or more airway secretion specimens, on or before the start date of treatment, with a semiquantitative smear size of 1+ or greater.
†Canadian-born includes 61 indigenous patients and 26 Canadian-born non-indigenous patients. Among the foreign-born patients, one smear-positive and 28 smear-negative were referred to public health through the immigration medical screening surveillance mechanism.
‡Difference in proportions [(smear-positive)−(smear-negative)]; sample size was adequate to detect observable differences.