[Experience with using anti-TB preparations (rifabutin)]

The study deals with the first experience of practically using a computer program designed to monitor the treatment process with a subsequent analysis of the efficiency of an anti-TB therapy with regard for different characteristics of patients. The efficiency of chemotherapy was compared (by using the clinical, microbiological and laboratory criteria) in two patients' groups, i.e. a control group (standard chemotherapy regimens) and a group, whose patients received rifabutin. Subgroups were isolated from among the last mentioned patients according to the below factors: primary and secondary therapy courses, completed and interrupted chemotherapy courses, and patients with multidrug resistance who discharged M. tuberculosis. Statistically reliable advantages of rifabutin were shown in respect to the arrest of bacterial discharge during a sufficiently prolonged (at leas 4 months) treatment course applicable to primarily diagnosed patients including those with multidrug resistance and M. tuberculosis. Disadvantages related with the application of rifabutin (a lack of clear-cut indications and abuse of treatment terms virtually in 50% of cases), which reduces the efficiency of its prescription, were equally detected.