title: Short course intermittent chemotherapy in childhood tuberculosis.
abstract: A total of 130 children diagnosed as having pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis who received short course intermittent chemotherapy between 1978-1992 were evaluated retrospectively. One hundred and ten children with tuberculosis were treated with isoniazid (10-15 mg/kg, maximum 400 mg), rifampin (10-15 mg/kg, maximum 600 mg), and streptomycin (30 mg/kg, maximum 1 g) daily, for 15 days. Treatment was completed with similar doses of isoniazid and rifampin twice a week for a period of 9 months. Since 1986, 20 children with tuberculosis were being treated with the same regimen but without streptomycin. The majority of patients in these cases had pulmonary tuberculosis (75%), followed by lymph nodes (9%), pleural (7%), bone and joint (5%), miliary (3%), and abdominal tuberculosis (1%). The clinicoradiologic response to treatment was observed to be excellent. Only one case of relapse was detected, which was the case of a patient with lymph node tuberculosis that occurred 18 months after the completion of treatment. No serious adverse drug reaction was observed in any of the cases mentioned. In conclusion, short-course low-dose intermittent chemotherapy is an effective and economical treatment with minimal side effects for pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis in childhood.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Pediatrics, Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Göçmen
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Ozçelic
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kiper
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Toppare
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kaya
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cengizlier
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cetinkaya
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004359:Drug Therapy, Combination; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007538:Isoniazid / Q000627:therapeutic use; D008297:Male; D012293:Rifampin / Q000627:therapeutic use; D013307:Streptomycin / Q000627:therapeutic use; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000188:drug therapy*
chemical_list: D007538:Isoniazid; D012293:Rifampin; D013307:Streptomycin