Treatment outcomes of patients placed on treatment under directly observed therapy short-course (DOTS)

Abstract

Background:Tuberculosis continues to be a pressing health problem in India. The Revised National Tuberculosis Programme (RNTCP), an application of Directly Observed Treatment Short-course (DOTS) in India, launched in 1997 needs continuous evaluation.Objective:To study the outcomes of treatment among the patients put on DOTS under RNTCP in Chandigarh, UT.Material & Methods:A Longitudinal study was conducted during 2004-2005 in 13 Microscopic centres (MC's) spread over 2 Tuberculosis Units (TU's) under District Tuberculosis Centre (DTC) in Union Territory (UT), Chandigarh. A sample of 265 respondents, selected by two-stage stratified random sampling technique, was recruited in the study cohort. Data analysis was done using SPSS-10 statistical software package.Results:For Category I and Category II patients, the Success rate was 98.6% and 90.4% respectively. The overall default rate was 1.1% and failure rate was 2.6%. For re-treatment cases, failure rate was higher i.e. 5.8%. The sputum conversion rate among the new smear positive cases was 93.8% at 3 months of treatment. For the re-treatment cases, spu-tum conversion rate at 3 months was 94.1%.Conclusion:The study concludes that RNTCP is running successfully in UT Chandigarh, having high success rate and low default rate. The reasons for high failure rate should be explored in depth.

Treatment outcomes among new smear positive and retreatment cases of tuberculosis in Mangalore, South India – a descriptive study.

“…6 Similarly, most patients in Category II treatment were also reported to be in the younger age group of 15 to 24 years in a study done in Chandigarh. 4 However the mean age of patients in Category I and II in the present study was higher than that of the Chandigarh study where it was 31.7±13.4 years for Category I patients and 32.3±14.0 years for Category II patients. 4 Another study done in West Bengal reported the mean age of Category II patients to be 41.8 years which was more than our findings.…”

Study of Treatment Outcome of Tuberculosis Patients Placed for Treatment Under Directly Observed Therapy Short Course (Dots) at a Tuberculosis Unit, Karad, Western Maharashtra

“…High proportion of pulmonary tuberculosis cases on Cat-I similar to the present study from 81% to 95.5% were observed by A Mishra et al, 8 S L Chandha et al, 9 Abhijit M et al, 7 A L DaCosta et al 10 Almost similar sputum conversion rate by three months of Cat-I pulmonary tuberculosis cases was reported by Bawri S et al 11 (92%) and Gurpreet K et al 12 (93.8%). Simmi Tiwari et al 13 reported achievement below average (88.8%) and S Bisoi et al 6 also found poor conversion rate (74.2%) among new sputum positive cases.…”

“…In the present study, the cure rate among pulmonary tuberculosis cases was more (61%) when compared to a study conducted by Mahesh C et al 15 (43.3%) whereas studies conducted by A. Mishra et al 12 (85.04%) and S L Chadha et al 13 (90%) had high cure rates among pulmonary tuberculosis cases. The success rate seen in the present study (74.5%) was low as compared to the observation noted by R Prasad et al 16 of 89.4%, and default rate of 32.5% in a study by Mahesh C et al was very high compared to present study (4.5%), but findings of R Prasad et al 16 regarding default rate (3.79%) was low compared to the present study.…”

Socio-Epidemiological Characteristics and Treatment Outcome of Adult Tuberculosis Patients Under Directly Observed Treatment Short Course in Ludhiana City

“…In the present study, the default rate was 11.8% which is higher than 1.1% and 6.8% documented by Kaur et al (2008) [10] and Moharana et al (2009) [12] respectively. However, Sophia et al (2004) [8] and Jaggarajamma et al (2007) [9] observed a higher default rate of 24.7% and 20.0% respectively.…”

“…However, Kaur et al (2008) [10] reported that 36.9% subjects were illiterate, 15.9% were educated up to primary, 18.5% up to middle, 16.2% up to high school, 7.2% up to senior secondary and 4.2% were graduates, while Chadha and Bhagi (2000) [11] and Sophia et al (2004) [8] reported 39% and 29.2% illiterate subjects respectively.…”