Treatment outcome of extrapulmonary tuberculosis under Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme

Extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) constitutes 15-20% of tuberculosis cases in India. Earlier studies have evaluated treatment outcomes of EPTB with little information on outcomes of individual site of EPTB.

The objective was to study the outcome of Directly Observed Treatment Short course (DOTS) treatment of EPTB in different organ systems under Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme.

Multi-centric retrospectives record review was carried out in three states in India. Data were collected from TB registers and analysed.

Of the total 2219 patients studied, there were more males in age group 15-45. The commonest sites of EPTB were lymph node (34.4%) and pleural effusion (25.2%) followed by abdominal (12.8%) and central nervous system (CNS) (9.4%). Lymph node involvement was more common in females (58%) and pleural effusion in males (70%). Overall treatment completion rate was 84% in EPTB patients. Treatment completion was 86% in HIV negative EPTB patients compared to 66% in HIV positive patients. Individually, treatment completion rate observed as follows: lymph node 90.9%, genitourinary 92.6%, bone and joint 86%, pleural effusion 84.7%, abdominal 76% and CNS (tuberculoma and meningitis) 63.7%. The site of EPTB was not recorded in 173 (7.8%) patients.

Treatment outcome of EPTB was poor in HIV infected patients and those with CNS tuberculosis. More efforts are needed to improve the treatment completion rates in these groups of patients.