Diabetes triples the risk for active
tuberculosis, thus the increasing burden of
type 2 diabetes will help to sustain the present
tuberculosis epidemic. Recommendations have been made for bidirectional screening, but evidence is scarce about the performance of specific
tuberculosis tests in individuals with diabetes, specific diabetes tests in patients with
tuberculosis, and screening and preventive
therapy for
latent tuberculosis infections in individuals with diabetes. Clinical management of patients with both diseases can be difficult.
Tuberculosis patients with diabetes have a lower concentration of
tuberculosis drugs and a higher risk of
drug toxicity than
tuberculosis patients without diabetes. Good glycaemic control, which reduces long-term
diabetes complications and could also improve
tuberculosis treatment outcomes, is hampered by chronic
inflammation, drug-drug interactions, suboptimum adherence to drug treatments, and other factors. Besides drug treatments for
tuberculosis and diabetes, other interventions, such as education, intensive monitoring, and lifestyle interventions, might be needed, especially for patients with newly diagnosed diabetes or those who need
insulin. From a health systems point of view, delivery of optimum care and integration of services for
tuberculosis and diabetes is a huge challenge in many countries. Experience from the combined
tuberculosis and HIV/
AIDS epidemic could serve as an example, but more studies are needed that include economic assessments of recommended screening and systems to manage concurrent
tuberculosis and diabetes.