[Antitubercular chemotherapy]

Abstract

Treatment of tuberculosis has three major goals: healing the patient, preventing selection of resistant strains and control transmission of tuberculosis. A 6 month regimen consisting of isoniazid, rifampin with addition of pyrazinamide for 2 months is the preferred treatment for pulmonary and extra-pulmonary tuberculosis. If resistance to isoniazid is suspected, ethambutol should be added until drug susceptibility studies become available. This treatment is effective in both HIV infected and uniinfected persons. Treatment failure is mostly related to lack of patient adherence to the drug regimen and to multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. The treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis requires second line drugs which are less effective and poorly tolerated. Prevention of resistant tuberculosis needs adequate treatment of each case of tuberculosis and improving of the patient compliance.