Background: Many studies have shown that the extra-pulmonary tuberculosis is growing compared to the pulmonary one. This study was carried out on under-treatment TB patients in order to evaluate the comparison of pulmonary and extra pulmonary TBs in kashan.

Materials and Methods: The study was carried out on available data and the medical documents of TB patients treated in “Kashan TB Center” during a five year-period (2002-2007. All relevant data regarding the treatment were collected based on the definition presented by “Iranian Defense Guidelines against TB”.

Results: One-hundred and three (52.6%) female and 93 (47.4%) male TB patients were studied 89 (45.4%) of whom were Iranian and 107 (54.6 %) were Afghani. The prevalence of pulmonary and extra-pulmonary cases were 130 (66.3%) and 66 (33.7%), respectively. The highest number of pulmonary TB was 72[55.38%] cases in female and extra-pulmonary TB was 35[53.04%] cases in males. Forty-six (69.6%) of extra-pulmonary patients completed their treatment period and 71(54.6%) of pulmonary patients were recovered completely. The most common clinical signs in pulmonary TB and in extra pulmonary TB were coughing (90%), sputum (87.6%) and weight loss (59.1%), night sweating (40.9%), respectively. The highest prevalent foci for extra-pulmonary TB were lymph nodes (19 [28.7%] cases) and bone (12[18.18%] cases).

Conclusions: The study showed that the prevalence of extra-pulmonary TB is one third of all TB cases. Therefore in the evaluation of non-specific findings of patients, TB must be considered.