Background: Despite control, prevention and the availability of drugs to cure tuberculosis, TB remains an important cause of death from an infectious agent in Iran. Pulmonary tuberculosis is more than 80% of tuberculosis cases. Chest x-ray is sensitive, cheap and accessible instrument for the diagnosis of tuberculosis. The aim of this study was to determine the radiological changes in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis.

Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, after consideration of inclusion and exclusion criteria, finally 477 radiographic patients referred to rural and urban clinics in recent decade were enrolled. The affected lobe or lobes of the left or right lung were recorded. The types of involvement were categorized based on patchy consolidation, cavitation, fibrosis, bronchiectasis, gohn lesion, bronchogenic spread and bronchopneumonia. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to measure the strength of association between continuous variables. For analysis of qualitative parameters, we use from Chi-square test. Data analysis was done in SPSS18 and p value below than 0.05 was significant.

Results: Out of 477 patients, mean age was 48.24±22 years old, male including 33.3%, Iranian and urban cases were 44% and 91.3% respectively. The most frequent involved site was the left upper lobe followed by the right upper lobe. The most frequent radiographic finding was patchy consolidation and then bronchogenic spread and pneumonic consolidation respectively. There was significant correlation between lung cavities in patients with nationality.

Conclusion: This study could  help to early diagnosis and treatment of suspect patients to pulmonary tuberculosis.