Abstract
Treatment Duration for Patients with Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis, United States
Highlights
To the Editor: In the United States, almost 80% of tuberculosis (TB) cases are diagnosed on the basis of positive culture results for Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and >90% of initial isolates are tested for drug susceptibilities [1,2]
The remaining 386 (3.8%) cases were excluded from analysis because the patients had pyrazinamide-monoresistant TB, suggestive of Mycobacterium bovis infection [165], or they were missing susceptibility testing results for isoniazid, rifampin, or ethambutol [112] or had other resistance patterns [109]
Cases were among patients who were alive and initiated therapy at diagnosis and who had start and end therapy dates as well as results for initial drug susceptibility testing to isoniazid, rifampin, and ethambutol
Summary
To the Editor: In the United States, almost 80% of tuberculosis (TB) cases are diagnosed on the basis of positive culture results for Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and >90% of initial isolates are tested for drug susceptibilities [1,2]. We calculated treatment duration for patients who were alive and had initiated TB therapy at diagnosis and who had results for initial drug susceptibility testing. Of the 10,747 patients with culture-confirmed TB, 10,120 (94.2%) were alive and had initiated TB therapy at diagnosis and had start and end therapy dates and initial drug susceptibility results.
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