<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> Background: Low antitubercular drug level is a risk factor for treatment failures. Antitubercular drug level determination has been suggested for complicated tuberculosis patients, but there has been interest in performing such studies in normal hosts.Objective: To identify whether there are advantages of routine antitubercular drug level determination.Patients and Methods: We determined drug levels in 15 new normal host Thai tuberculosis patients by using published methods. All patients received the Directly Observed Treatment Short-course including pyrazinamide, rifampicin, and isoniazid.Results: We started with 15 patients of whom 27% (4 patients) were mycobacteria smear-positive, 33% (5 patients) had low blood levels of pyrazinamide and 87% had low levels of rifampicin. The drug levels in the smear-positive group were lower than in the smear-negative group. All smear-positive patients had a rifampicin levels lower than the therapeutic range.Conclusion: Antitubercular drug level determination has a potential to identify patients who may be at risk of poor treatment results.</abstract>

Background: Low antitubercular drug level is a risk factor for treatment failures. Antitubercular drug level determination has been suggested for complicated tuberculosis patients, but there has been interest in performing such studies in normal hosts.Objective: To identify whether there are advantages of routine antitubercular drug level determination.Patients and Methods: We determined drug levels in 15 new normal host Thai tuberculosis patients by using published methods. All patients received the Directly Observed Treatment Short-course including pyrazinamide, rifampicin, and isoniazid.Results: We started with 15 patients of whom 27% (4 patients) were mycobacteria smear-positive, 33% (5 patients) had low blood levels of pyrazinamide and 87% had low levels of rifampicin. The drug levels in the smear-positive group were lower than in the smear-negative group. All smear-positive patients had a rifampicin levels lower than the therapeutic range.Conclusion: Antitubercular drug level determination has a potential to identify patients who may be at risk of poor treatment results.

Low antitubercular drug levels in newly infected normal hosts

Office of Disease Prevention and Control 10, Chiang Mai,

School of Health Sciences, Mae Fah Luang University, Chiang Rai 57100,

Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai,

Asian Biomedicine

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

{"article-title":"Low antitubercular drug levels in newly infected normal hosts"}

Background: Low antitubercular drug level is a risk factor for treatment failures. Antitubercular drug level determination has been suggested for complicated...

Low antitubercular drug levels in newly infected normal hosts

Article Category: Brief communication (Original)

Published Online: Feb 04, 2017

Page range: 407 - 410

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5372/1905-7415.0703.193

© 2017

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.