USIDEME DAVID OSAMOJE

Pulmonary Tuberculosis typically more common in low economic communities has shown a resurgence in non-endemic populations in recent years, a phenomenon that has been attributed to factors such as increased migration and the HIV epidemic. Pulmonary tuberculosis is a disseminated disease (likely to progress and spread from the lungs to involve other organs and systems, e.g the cardiac and the CNS), hence timely diagnosis of the disease is paramount. So it is important that radiologists and clinicians understand the typical distribution, patterns, and clinical manifestations of Pulmonary Tuberculosis. A retrospective study of clinical and chest radiographic features of all 331 Pulmonary Tuberculosis (PTB) patients diagnosed within june, 2024 and june, 2025 was carried out. at the end of the study analysis indicated a male predominance (63%) with a mean age of 48 years. Clinical symptoms like cough were most common (52%) but had low specificity for TB diagnosis. Radiographic findings revealed advanced disease, with fibro-cavitary changes in 31.4% and upper lobe involvement in 90.6% of cases. Clinical suspicion had a sensitivity of 78.6% but a specificity of only 36.1%, limiting its diagnostic accuracy. The study shows both the benefits and limitations associated with reliance on clinical manifestations of Pulmonary Tuberculosis (PTB) alone before further diagnosis and encourages combining clinical assessment with routine chest X-rays and improved diagnostic protocols for early and more accurate Tuberculosis detection