Treatment Outcomes among Patients Treated With Category II Antituberculosis Regimen: Short Review

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality, especially in developing and underdeveloped nations. To add to the burden, drug resistant TB is on the rise and India is handling the dual burden of drug sensitive TB and resistant TB. Previously treated TB cases when compared to the newly diagnosed, have poor treatment success rates and nearly seven times higher incidence of multi drug resistant TB. Proper management of patients treated with Category-II anti-tuberculous treatment (ATT) can result in decrease in emergence of drug resistant bacilli and interruption of disease transmission. Very few studies have reported the treatment outcomes of re-treatment cases and the associated factors in the literature. Favourable outcome rates are highly variable among the failure, relapse and default subgroups. There are many challenges faced by the treating physicians in diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of the re-treatment cases. This review describes the outcomes of patients treated with Category-II ATT and the challenges in managing the previously treated cases successfully. Relapse type of retreatment cases had better success rates compared to other subgroups.