a study of mycobacterium tuberculosis drug resistance in pulmonary tuberculosis

tuberculosis remains a major public health problem in both developing and developed countries. drug-resistant tuberculosis is an increasing health problem and serious challenge to tuberculosis (tb) control programs. information about the susceptibility pattern of mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates against anti-tuberculosis drugs is an important aspect to tb control. the objectives of the study were to evaluate the frequency of drug-resistance and to survey the nature of drug resistance among patients with pulmonary tuberculosis. ninety-one m. tuberculosis strains were isolated from sputum samples of patients referred to cerrhapasa medical faculty hospital, istanbul, turkey, during a 9 month period. drug susceptibility testing was performed to isoniazid (inh), streptomycin (sm), ethambutol (emb) and rifampin (rmp) on lowenstein-jensen medium according to proportion method. total resistance was identified in 40 of 91 patients (44%). the highest rate of primary resistance was to sm (21.1 %), followed by inh (15.8%), rmp (5.3%) and emb (2.6%). secondary resistance was most frequent to inh (33.3%), followed by sm (28.6%), rmp (23.8%) and emb (14.3%). multidrug resistance (mdr) was observed in 6 of the 91 cases (6.6%). due to the high prevalence of drug resistance, particularly in developing countries, further studies should be conducted regularly to monitor resistance in these countries.