A 5-year study of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis in a concurrent comparison of home and sanatorium treatment for one year with isoniazid plus PAS.
This report from the Tuberculosis Chemotherapy Centre, Madras, summarizes the progress over a 5-year period of 193 patients with newly diagnosed, sputum-positive pulmonary tuberculosis who were admitted to a concurrent comparison of home and sanatorium treatment for one year with isoniazid plus PAS. Previous reports have shown that, despite the traditional advantages of sanatorium treatment-rest, adequate diet, nursing and supervised drug-administration-the home patients responded nearly as well as the sanatorium patients in the first year; further, the relapse rates over a 2-year period of follow-up were similar. The findings in the present report are based on a 4-year period of follow-up and extend these conclusions, the relapse rates over the period being 7% for the home patients and 10% for the sanatorium patients.Patients who failed to respond to treatment in the first year and those who had a bacteriological relapse in the second or subsequent years were usually re-treated with reserve regimens, first with streptomycin plus pyrazinamide and, if this was ineffective, with cycloserine plus ethionamide. Considering the findings over the entire 5-year period, five home patients and three sanatorium patients died from non-tuberculous causes. Of the remainder, 5% of the home patients and 6% of the sanatorium patients died of tuberculosis, 4% in each series had bacteriologically active disease at five years and 90% and 89%, respectively, had bacteriologically quiescent disease at that time. These findings are very encouraging, particularly for developing countries such as India, where tuberculosis is a major problem and sanatorium beds are very few.
D000636:Aminosalicylic Acids / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006699:Home Care Services; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D007538:Isoniazid / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D014397:Tuberculosis, Pulmonary / Q000188:drug therapy*
D000636:Aminosalicylic Acids; D007538:Isoniazid