Background: Patients with tuberculosis often suffer from severe weight loss and is used as useful marker to predict TB treatment outcome. Hence a study was planned with an objective to determine the change of patient’s body weight over time throughout treatment and to determine whether there was any association with treatment outcome.Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study, planned to be conducted among all smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients registered in a Tuberculosis Unit of Pune corporation, during the period of January to December 2015. Body weights of patients were recorded from TB treatment cards at the time of diagnosis, after 2 months of intensive phase of treatment and at the end of treatment. Total 344 cases were enrolled. Chi-Square test and Fisher’s exact test and repeated measure ANOVA test was used for analysis.Results: A bad outcome was more likely among the category II cases as compared to category I, among non-adherent to treatment cases in continuation phase and higher sputum grading at the time of diagnosis i. e. in 3+ sputum smear grading. The weights of the patients at the time of diagnosis, at end of intensive phase and at end of treatment showed statistical significant difference (p<0.0001). The weight gain, more so at end of treatment was significantly associated with good outcome.Conclusions: Weight gain has prognostic significance in patients with tuberculosis and should be considered as a surrogate marker to monitor response to TB treatment especially in developing countries where extensive laboratory tests are not feasible.

Context:Drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) strains have evolved mainly due to incomplete or improper treatment of TB patients and are one of the hurdles in controlling TB problem. It is better to understand the magnitude and comorbidities associated with drug-resistant TB.Aim and Objectives:(1) To study some of the sociodemographic profile and history of TB treatment of drug-resistant TB cases. (2) To study their drug-resistance pattern and their comorbidity profile.Settings and Design:It was a record-based study descriptive, cross-sectional study of drug-resistant TB cases that were referred to State TB Training and Demonstration Centre (STDC).Materials and Methods:The data were collected by means of use of TB patient treatment register of those tested at STDC during first two quarters of the year 2012 (from January to June 2012). Sputum samples of all the cases were subjected to concentrated microscopy, and all positive samples were tested by GeneXpert and Line Probe Assay for drug susceptibility testing (DST) for isoniazid and rifampicin.Statistical Analysis:The findings were analyzed with Epi info7, using the mean, standard deviation, Chi-square test.Results:The mean age of the patients was 35.65 ± 13.59 years, majority 71.87% were males. The majority of patients 72.91% had the previous history of TB. A majority 68.75% of the patients had acquired drug resistance, and 73.95% of cases were suffering from multidrug-resistant TB. A total of 28.13% patients had self-reported comorbidity. A majority 62.5% had failure as the treatment outcome for the current episode of TB and mortality was seen in 12.5% cases.Conclusions:Majority had failure as a treatment outcome due to advanced disease status or late diagnosis. Rapid diagnosis and DST for first- and second-line drugs will greatly improve the clinical outcome.

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