Treatment response of retreatment category tribal Pulmonary Tuberculosis patients lived in Eastern India

Objective: The study was conducted to assess the treatment outcome of different category retreatment cases with the aim of finding out the important predictors of unfavorable outcomes. Methodology: This hospital based prospective cohort study was conducted in three Tuberculosis unit (TU) of west Midnapore (a district of eastern India), covering mostly the tribal populated areas. Patients who were registered for Category II antituberculosis treatment between 1st quarter 2013 (Jan to Mar) to 4th quarter 2013 (Oct to Dec), were considered as our study cohort and they were followed upto December 2014. The study was started with 177 patients but ultimately ended with 165 patients. Results: Unfavorable outcome was observed among 24.8% patients. Among them mostly (51.2%) were defaulter, 22% were failure case and 26.8% patients died during treatment. Patients, who were minority by religion, were found 4 times more vulnerable for unfavorable outcome. Unfavorable outcome were found 7 times more common among retreatment TB cases who remain sputum positive after completion of initiation phase of category II treatment. Conclusion: Programmatic approach should be specified to address the minority by religion population and to reduce the load of sputum positive cases after completion of initiation phase treatment by tracking them.