Pulmonary TB is diagnosed according to the following criteria established in the Brazilian Guidelines for Tuberculosis [8] The following data were collected in a standardized questionnaire: demographic data (sex, age, race, years of schooling), smoking status, alcoholism, injection drug use, clinical form of TB, symptoms at admission, methods of diagnostic, presence of comorbidities, prior TB treatment, drug regimen, interval from hospital admission until initiation of treatment, delayed treatment (failure to initiate treatment within the first 24 hours after admission to hospital), reasons for ICU admission, interval from hospital admission until ICU admission (early ICU [admitted directly or transferred to an ICU within 4 days of admission] and late ICU [admitted to an ICU after 4 days of hospitalization]), ARF, ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), Acute Physiologic and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II scores, presence of organ failures, ARDS, sepsis, septic shock, length of hospital and ICU stay, length of mechanical ventilation, laboratory investigations (white cell count, hemoglobin, coagulation profile, liver and renal function parameters, albumin, C-reactive protein, blood gas analysis), Glasgow coma score, urine output, use of vasoactive drugs, hospitalization outcome (death or discharge), and outcome after discharge (cure, dropout, death). Data after discharge were obtained from SINAN (National System of Information on Notifiable Diseases). SINAN is a database from the Brazilian government which stores information concerning all notifiable infectious and contagious diseases. The duration of follow-up period was one year.