[Short course chemotherapy and relapse in pulmonary tuberculosis in Japan]

As far as short course chemotherapy of pulmonary tuberculosis is concerned, Japan is considered to have been a little behind the trend of the world in the past. However, since 1978 the concept of the chemotherapy has begun to be adopted in some hospitals and research councils (Cooperative Study Unit of Chemotherapy of Tuberculosis of National Sanatoria, Tuberculosis Research Committees, Ryoken), and then seems to be prevailing in other hospitals as the results of their gradual understanding. This movement has likely been accelerated since Dr. W. Fox came to Japan in 1978 at the invitation of Japanese Society of Tuberculosis and gave us much information and suggestion through his special lecture on short course chemotherapy of tuberculosis. Fifteen years have past since short course chemotherapy started in Japan. At this opportunity, I would like to review the results of short course chemotherapy studies reported by Japanese investigators. Bacteriological relapse rates in cases followed-up for three years and for from five to nine years after the end of short course chemotherapy were 1.9% (20 out of 1067) and 3.3% (26 out of 783), respectively. According to the analysis of the time of relapse after completion chemotherapy, bacteriological relapses could be divided into two types. One was early relapse which occurred within one year after completing treatment, and the other was late relapse which occurred two or three years after completing treatment.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)