Review of treatment outcome of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis

Abstract

Multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) is essentially a man-made phenomenon and arises mainly due to inadequate treatment of drug-sensitive TB. Drug resistance is seen in 1-3% of new cases and 12% of re-treated tuberculosis. Material and Methods: We studied 291 cases of multidrug resistant tuberculosis registered at drug resistant tuberculosis (DRTB) center, Mysore. Patients were treated according to programmatic management of drug resistant tuberculosis (PMDT) guidelines by DRTB committee of the hospital. Results: Out of 291 treated cases of MDR TB, 41 were diagnosed when they were on Category I regimen of revised national tuberculosis control program. Thirty cases were treatment after lost to follow-up. Twenty-one cases were co-infected with tuberculosis and human immune deficiency virus. Conclusion: Treatment outcome was available in 275 patients. Out of which 16 cases completed treatment, 106 were cured, 55 cases stopped treatment, 84 died, treatment was stopped in 3 patients due to some reason and 11 cases were switched to extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR) regimen. Our study concluded that despite adequate drugs with well-organized program the treatment outcome of MDR tuberculosis was still low.