A substantial proportion of tuberculosis patients remain with pulmonary symptoms and reduced physical capacity despite successful treatment. We performed a systematic review to analyse the burden of post-tuberculosis lung impairment measured by lung function testing.

We searched the PubMed database for articles published between database inception and November 2020 and performed meta-analyses to estimate the prevalence, type and severity of lung impairment among drug-susceptible and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis survivors. Methodological quality of included studies was assessed using the Newcastle–Ottawa scale.

54 articles were included in this review. For subjects with former drug-susceptible tuberculosis, the combined estimated mean was 76.6% (95% CI 71.6–81.6) of predicted for forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV₁) and 81.8% (95% CI 77.4–86.2) for forced vital capacity (FVC). In former patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, it was 65.9% (95% CI 57.1–74.7) for FEV₁ and 76.0% (95% CI 66.3–85.8) for FVC, respectively. The analysis of impairment types in former patients with drug-susceptible and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis showed that 22.0% versus 19.0% had obstructive, 23.0% versus 22.0% restrictive and 15.0% versus 43.0% had mixed impairment type, respectively. In the majority of studies, at least 10–15% of tuberculosis survivors had severe lung impairment.

This systematic review showed long-term abnormal spirometry results in a significant proportion of tuberculosis survivors.