Martin, Laura J;
Roper, Martha H;
Grandjean, Louis;
Gilman, Robert H;
Coronel, Jorge;
Caviedes, Luz;
Friedland, Jon S;
(2016)
Rationing tests for drug-resistant tuberculosis – who are we prepared to miss?
BMC Medicine
, 14
, Article 30. 10.1186/s12916-016-0576-8.
Preview |
PDF
s12916-016-0576-8.pdf - Published Version Download (1MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Background: Early identification of patients with drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) increases the likelihood of treatment success and interrupts transmission. Resource-constrained settings use risk profiling to ration the use of drug susceptibility testing (DST). Nevertheless, no studies have yet quantified how many patients with DR-TB this strategy will miss.// Methods: A total of 1,545 subjects, who presented to Lima health centres with possible TB symptoms, completed a clinic-epidemiological questionnaire and provided sputum samples for TB culture and DST. The proportion of drug resistance in this population was calculated and the data was analysed to demonstrate the effect of rationing tests to patients with multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) risk factors on the number of tests needed and corresponding proportion of missed patients with DR-TB.// Results: Overall, 147/1,545 (9.5 %) subjects had culture-positive TB, of which 32 (21.8 %) had DR-TB (MDR, 13.6 %; isoniazid mono-resistant, 7.5 %; rifampicin mono-resistant, 0.7 %). A total of 553 subjects (35.8 %) reported one or more MDR-TB risk factors; of these, 506 (91.5 %; 95 % CI, 88.9–93.7 %) did not have TB, 32/553 (5.8 %; 95 % CI, 3.4–8.1 %) had drug-susceptible TB, and only 15/553 (2.7 %; 95 % CI, 1.5–4.4 %) had DR-TB. Rationing DST to those with an MDR-TB risk factor would have missed more than half of the DR-TB population (17/32, 53.2 %; 95 % CI, 34.7–70.9).// Conclusions: Rationing DST based on known MDR-TB risk factors misses an unacceptable proportion of patients with drug-resistance in settings with ongoing DR-TB transmission. Investment in diagnostic services to allow universal DST for people with presumptive TB should be a high priority.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Rationing tests for drug-resistant tuberculosis – who are we prepared to miss? |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1186/s12916-016-0576-8 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-016-0576-8 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © The Author(s), 2023. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health > Infection, Immunity and Inflammation Dept |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176766 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
