[Tuberculosis Annual Report 2008--Series 9. Treatment of TB (2)]

The standard treatment for tuberculosis (TB) is the key to its control. Here we report on the statistics of treatment status and the duration of hospitalization/treatment. The place of initial treatment was observed among newly notified TB patients (n = 24,760) in 2008. Of those, the proportion receiving treatment in hospital among sputum smear positive pulmonary TB patients was the most (91.7%), including 2.1% hospitalized mainly due to other diseases. The proportion receiving treatment in hospital among bacteriologically negative pulmonary TB cases was the least (25.8%), including 10.3% hospitalized mainly due to other diseases. This proportion of patients receiving treatment in hospital did not differ with age, among sputum smear positive pulmonary TB cases. But, this proportion differed greatly in their age groups (e.g. 9.9% in their 20s, 25.7% in their 50s and 50.0% in their 80s), among bacteriologically negative pulmonary TB cases. The duration of hospitalization for TB treatment among newly notified cases in 2007 was observed at the end of 2008. The median hospitalization periods were 69 days, 74 days, 45 days, 38 days and 45 days, among new sputum smear positive pulmonary TB cases, retreatment sputum smear positive pulmonary TB cases, other bacillary positive pulmonary TB cases, bacilli negative pulmonary TB cases and extra-pulmonary TB cases, respectively. The duration of TB treatment among newly notified cases in 2007 was observed at the end of 2008. The median treatment duration among all forms of TB was 273 days. The longest median treatment duration was 298 days for retreatment sputum smear positive pulmonary TB cases and the shortest was 204 days for bacteriologically negative pulmonary TB cases.