The Effect of Vitamin C Supplementation on Chest X-Rayimprovementin Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients During Intensive Phase in Medan

Backgrounds: Tuberculosis is still a public health problem in the world.Vitamin C is a water soluble micronutrient, protect the host from reactive oxygen and reactive nitrogen intermediates generated during mycobacterial infection, vitamin c involved in the synthesis of collagen, iron transport, and acts as physiological antioxidant. Vitamin C play role in killing Mycobacterium tuberculosis by fenton reaction. This study was to determine the effect of vitamin c supplementation on chest X-ray improvement in pulmonary tuberculosis patients during intensive phase. Methods: This is a quasi experimental study with single blind randomized controlled trial design. Subjects was divided into two groups. The first group was pulmonary tuberculosis patients treated with anti tuberculosis treatment plus vitamin C and the second group was treated with anti tuberculosis treatment plus placebo. Study was conducted in several Health Center Medan. The subjects were pulmonary tuberculosis patients with positive AFB sputum in intensive phase from December 2017 to May 2018. Data was analyzed using Chi-square test or Wilcoxon Signed Rank test. Results: From 80 total subjects, 53 patients (66%) were men and 27 patients (34%) were women. After 2 months of treatment, better improvement of chest X-ray images was found in the ATT plus vitamin C group; 21 patients (52.5%) had no lesion on chest X ray anymore, while in the placebo group 15 patients (37.5%) had no lesion on chest X ray images Conclusion: Vitamin C supplementation in pulmonary tuberculosis provides better improvement of chest X-ray images.