Profile and Outcome of Tuberculosis treatment in a Non Government tertiary centre in South India

Introduction: To study the Profile and Outcome of patients undergoing treatment for TB in a tertiary care hospital in South India. Materials and Method: All patients diagnosed with Tuberculosis in the facility during the period of January of 2010 to January 2012 were included in the study after obtaining informed consent. The cases were identified retrospectively by review of the medical records. Various factors like Ethnicity, Age, Gender, site of Tb, Diagnostic methods, Treatment schedule, Duration of treatment and follow up were analyzed. Results: A total of no of cases of tuberculosis which were obtained from the records during the study period were 72, of which 86.11% were diagnosed as pulmonary Tuberculosis and rest 13.89% was diagnosed as having Extra pulmonary Tuberculosis. Of the pulmonary TB patients 12.90% of them were sputum positives while the rest 87. 10% were diagnosed based on the physicians clinical expertise along with substantial radiological and supporting laboratory reports. Of this 72.2% cases were recorded as cured in the records and rest of them 11.11% were recorded as being referred to local primary health centre for treatment while 16.66% were not being followed up. There were no documented cases of drug resistance or failures, possibly primarily owing to the fact that no patients were followed up using sputum test. Conclusion: The private care facility should introduce some methods for contact tracing, to track the defaulters and lost in follow up patients with tuberculosis. This will reduce the spread of Tuberculosis within the community. Sputum should be followed up from shifting from intensive phase to maintenance phase.