OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to describe tuberculosis-related mortality in Espírito Santo, Brazil, evaluating its tendencies in relation to clinical presentation, gender and age bracket. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective, descriptive study based on secondary data. For the 1985-2004 period, we investigated all deaths of residents of Espírito Santo in which tuberculosis was given as the underlying cause, as reported in the Brazilian National Mortality Database. RESULTS: The adjusted mortality rates for all forms of tuberculosis paralleled the overall mortality rates in the state, decreasing from 5.6/100,000 inhabitants in 1985 to 2.0/100,000 inhabitants in 2004. Pulmonary tuberculosis was the predominant form of the disease (89.7% of tuberculosis-related deaths) throughout the period studied, and the male/female mortality rate ratio ranged from 1.1 in 1998 to 3.19 in 2004. CONCLUSIONS: We observed a decrease in the mortality rates in all age brackets. Predominance of the pulmonary form, male gender and advanced age was similar to that of overall tuberculosis-related mortality in Brazil.
Tuberculosis; Mortality; Information systems
