Profile of drug-resistant tuberculosis in Western Maharashtra

Drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) strains have evolved mainly due to incomplete or improper treatment of TB patients and are one of the hurdles in controlling TB problem. It is better to understand the magnitude and comorbidities associated with drug-resistant TB.

(1) To study some of the sociodemographic profile and history of TB treatment of drug-resistant TB cases. (2) To study their drug-resistance pattern and their comorbidity profile.

It was a record-based study descriptive, cross-sectional study of drug-resistant TB cases that were referred to State TB Training and Demonstration Centre (STDC).

The data were collected by means of use of TB patient treatment register of those tested at STDC during first two quarters of the year 2012 (from January to June 2012). Sputum samples of all the cases were subjected to concentrated microscopy, and all positive samples were tested by GeneXpert and Line Probe Assay for drug susceptibility testing (DST) for isoniazid and rifampicin.

The findings were analyzed with Epi info7, using the mean, standard deviation, Chi-square test.

The mean age of the patients was 35.65 ± 13.59 years, majority 71.87% were males. The majority of patients 72.91% had the previous history of TB. A majority 68.75% of the patients had acquired drug resistance, and 73.95% of cases were suffering from multidrug-resistant TB. A total of 28.13% patients had self-reported comorbidity. A majority 62.5% had failure as the treatment outcome for the current episode of TB and mortality was seen in 12.5% cases.

Majority had failure as a treatment outcome due to advanced disease status or late diagnosis. Rapid diagnosis and DST for first- and second-line drugs will greatly improve the clinical outcome.