In addition, for patients with miliary TB who developed ARDS during pregnancy, there are few case reports with favorable outcome. Our data suggested that pregnancy was a risk factor for ARDS, but this clinical observation was limited by the small sample size. The efficacy of systemic corticosteroids is well-documented for several extrapulmonary complications of tuberculosis such as tuberculous meningitis and tuberculous pericarditis [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] , as well as ARDS [29] [30] [31] [32] . The role of glucocorticoids remains controversial in the management of miliary TB complicated by ARDS [33, 34] . In our study, patients treated with glucocorticoids had a lower mortality than those who did not, which might suggest that methylprednisolone at a dose of 80 mg/day was given intravenously at the time when anti-tuberculosis therapy was started might be benefit for ARDS associated with miliary TB. The limitations of this study are studies with large numbers of patients may be required to validate the observations due to a relatively small sample size in the present study.