Progress in the Second Year of Patients with Quiescent Pulmonary Tuberculosis after a Year of Chemotherapy at Home or in Sanatorium, and Influence of Further Chemotherapy on the Relapse Rate

Velu, S and Andrews, R H and Devadatta, S and Fox, Wallace and Radhakrishna, S and Ramakrishnan, C V and Selkon, J B and Somasundaram, P R and Subbaiah, T V (1960) Progress in the Second Year of Patients with Quiescent Pulmonary Tuberculosis after a Year of Chemotherapy at Home or in Sanatorium, and Influence of Further Chemotherapy on the Relapse Rate. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 23 (4-5). pp. 511-533. ISSN 00429686

Preview

PDF RP196009.pdf - Published Version Download (182kB)

Abstract

A recent report by the Tuberculosis Chemotherapy Centre, Madras, showed that the response of patients to a year’s domiciliary treatment for pulmonary tuberculosis with isoniazid plus paminosalicylic acid closely approached that of patients to a year’s sanatorium treatment with the same combination of drugs. The present report summarizes the findings of a second year’s study, carried out on those patients in the first-year study whose disease had attained bacteriological quiescence by the end of the year of combined chemotherapy. The main objects of this follow-up study were to determine (a) whether relapse in the second year was more frequent among the patients originally treated at home than among those originally treated in sanatorium, (b) whether a second year of antituberculosis chemotherapy, with isoniazid alone, would reduce the relapse rate and (c) the influence of residual cavitation at one year, the socalled “pen negative” syndrome, on the results in the second year. During the second year all the patients were treated at home, either with isoniaazid or with a placebo, calcium gluconate; in each case the medicine was administered by the patients themselves. It was found that there was very little difference in the relapse rates of “home “ and “ sanatorium’ groups, that a second year of treatment with isoniazid alone did not influence the likelihood of relapse, and that patients with the open negative syndrome fared slightly less well in the second year than patients without residual cavitation.

Actions (login required)

View Item