Treatment Outcomes of Patients Placed on Treatment Under Directly Observed Therapy Short-Course (Dots)

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis continues to be a pressing health problem in India. The Revised National Tuberculosis Programme (RNTCP), an application of Directly Observed Treatment Short-course (DOTS) in India, launched in 1997 needs continuous evaluation. OBJECTIVE: To study the outcomes of treatment among the patients put on DOTS under RNTCP in Chandigarh, UT. MATERIAL & METHODS: A Longitudinal study was conducted during 2004-2005 in 13 Microscopic centres (MC's) spread over 2 Tuberculosis Units (TU's) under District Tuberculosis Centre (DTC) in Union Territory (UT), Chandigarh. A sample of 265 respondents, selected by two-stage stratified random sampling technique, was recruited in the study cohort. Data analysis was done using SPSS-10 statistical software package. RESULTS: For Category I and Category II patients, the Success rate was 98.6% and 90.4% respectively. The overall default rate was 1.1% and failure rate was 2.6%. For re-treatment cases, failure rate was higher i.e. 5.8%. The sputum conversion rate among the new smear positive cases was 93.8% at 3 months of treatment. For the re-treatment cases, spu-tum conversion rate at 3 months was 94.1%. CONCLUSION: The study concludes that RNTCP is running successfully in UT Chandigarh, having high success rate and low default rate. The reasons for high failure rate should be explored in depth.