Tuberculosis treatment outcome monitoring in European Union countries: systematic review.
Treatment success measured by treatment outcome monitoring (TOM) is a key programmatic output of tuberculosis (TB) control programmes. We performed a systematic literature review on national-level TOM in the 30 European Union (EU)/European Economic Areas (EEA) countries to summarise methods used to collect and report data on TOM. Online reference bibliographic databases PubMed/MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched to identify relevant indexed and non-indexed literature published between January 2000 and August 2010. The search strategy resulted in 615 potentially relevant indexed citations, of which 27 full-text national studies (79 data sets) were included for final analysis. The selected studies were performed in 10 EU/EEA countries and gave a fragmented impression of TOM in the EU/EEA. Publication year, study period, sample size, databases, definitions, variables, patient and outcome categories, and population subgroups varied widely, portraying a very heterogeneous picture. This review confirmed previous reports of considerable heterogeneity in publications of TOM results across EU/EEA countries. PubMed/MEDLINE and EMBASE indexed studies are not a suitable instrument to measure representative TOM results for the 30 EU/EEA countries. Uniform and complete reporting to the centralised European Surveillance System will produce the most timely and reliable results of TB treatment outcomes in the EU/EEA.
KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation, The Hague, the Netherlands.
Rob
R
van Hest
Csaba
C
Ködmön
Suzanne
S
Verver
Connie G M
CG
Erkens
Masja
M
Straetemans
Davide
D
Manissero
Gerard
G
de Vries
D003140:Communicable Disease Control / Q000379:methods; D062665:Epidemiological Monitoring; D005062:European Union; D054908:Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy*; D018088:Tuberculosis, Multidrug-Resistant / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy