Five-year trend of acquired antitubercular drug resistance in patients attending a tertiary care hospital at Dehradun (Uttarakhand)

BACKGROUND/AIM: To study the prevalence and trend of acquired drug resistance to the first line antitubercular drugs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Sputum of 215 previously treated adult pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) patients over a period of 2002-2006 were subjected to culture and sensitivity testing against common antitubercular drugs. RESULT: Growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis was obtained from sputum specimen of 184 (85.58%) of the 215 patients who were studied; Overall, 113 (62.77%) of these were resistant to at least one antitubercular drug. Resistance to isoniazid was most common (62.22%) followed by rifampicin (57.22%). Multidrug resistance (MDR) was observed in 103 (57.22%) cases. During the five-year study period, an increasing trend in drug resistance including MDR-TB was observed. CONCLUSION: This study showed increasing trend in drug resistance including MDR-TB in five years.