Treatment Outcome Among the Retreatment Tuberculosis (TB) Patients under RNTCP in Chandigarh, India

'RETREATMENT' for Tuberculosis (TB) has long been a neglected area in global TB control. While other components of the Stop TB Strategy have garnered appropriate focus and, increasingly, sufficient resources, issues related to the TB of patients previously treated for tuberculosis remain under examined and under-resourced.

A longitudinal study was designed and the patients registered under Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) category II from June 2010 to December 2011.Out of total 607 patients registered during this period under category II of RNTCP in Chandigarh (India), 545 consented to participate in the study. These were followed up to September 2012 till the completion of treatment.

The analysis was done by using SPPS-18 statistical software package. Chi- square test was used for testing association of different characteristics.

Four Hundred Thirty (78.9%) of the patients had pulmonary TB and 115(21.1%) of the patients had extra pulmonary TB. In the study cohort of category II patients 264(48.4%) were relapse patients,167(30.6%) belonged to others category, 75(13.8%) were on treatment after default, 39(7.2%) were failure cases. The mean age of patients was 35.92 ± 15.42 (p = 0.928). Maximum patients belonged to age group of 25-34 years (25.3%). Seventy Three (13.4%) were Illiterate. In treatment after default group only 65.3% patients were cured. Maximum deaths 8% were seen in treatment after default group of patients. The overall default in the study was 5.9%.

The findings of this study suggest that it is essential to monitor re-treatment patients with same vigour to reduce default and improve their treatment outcome.