Abstract: Objective To analyze the effect of case-finding among students with tuberculosis (TB) in Xi’An University of Finance and Economics from 2008 to 2013. Methods  The TB patients were usually detected by the following four ways in the university: annual medical examinations for new students, annual medical examinations for graduates, seeking health care of students with symptoms and TB screening for close contacts of pulmonary TB patients. In six years (from 2008 to 2013), the number of TB patients who were detected by those four ways were 39, 31, 49 and 2 respectively. The information of all detected TB patients were collected and analyzed. A Chi-square test and linear trend Chi-square test were used to analyze TB prevalence and notification rate among students and the level of significance was set to P<0.05. Results  In 6 years, the average prevalence of active TB among new students and graduates were 115.69/100 000 (39/33 711) and 101.81/100 000 (31/30 450) respectively; the average prevalence of smear-positive TB were 5.93/100 000 and 0 (0/30 450) respectively. The TB prevalence of new students from 2008 to 2013 were 133.89/100 000 (7/5228), 135.99/100 000 (8/5883), 56.34/100 000 (3/5325), 73.27/100 000 (4/5459), 126.84/100 000 (8/6307) and 163.37/100 000 (9/5509) respectively, and the chi-square test and linear trend Chi-square test of had no statistically significant difference (χ²＝3.985, P>0.05; χ²_trend＝0.134, P>0.05). The TB prevalence of graduates from 2008 to 2013 were 169.40/100 000 (9/5313), 120.92/100 000 (6/4962), 111.09/100 000 (6/5401), 79.78/100 000 (4/5014), 87.73/100 000 (5/5699) and 24.62/100 000 (1/4061) respectively, and the Chi-square test had no statistically significant difference (χ²＝4.436, P>0.05) while the linear trend Chi-square test had statistically significant difference (χ²_trend＝4.744, P<0.05) which indicated a decreasing trend of TB prevalence. The average notification rate of active TB among students by seeking health care and close contacts screening were 41.15/100 000 and 80.19/100 000 respectively and the notification rate of smear-positive TB were 1.68/100 000 (2/119 069) and 0 (0/2494). The Chi-square test and linear trend chi-square test of the TB notification rate had no statistically significant difference (χ²＝10.197, P>0.05; χ²_trend＝1.667, P>0.05 ). Conclusion A combination of various methods on TB case-finding is not only feasible in college, but also effective on early diagnosis of TB and prevention of spread of TB among students.

Key words: Tuberculosis, pulmonary/prevention &, control, Students, Xi&, rsquo, an city