CLINICO-EPIDEMIOLOGICAL PROFILE AND TREATMENT OUTCOMES OF TUBERCULOSIS PATIENTS DIAGNOSED AT 2 DESIGNATED MICROSCOPY CENTRES (DMCS) IN NEW DELHI, INDIA

Objective: To study the clinical-epidemiological profile and treatment outcomes of tuberculosis patients diagnosed at two designated microscopy centres (DMCs) in New Delhi, India.

Methods: Data was collected from the available treatment records as well as from the online notification platform Nikshay, for the patients diagnosed in the period 01 October 2021 to 30 June 2022 and analysed.

Results:This study involved 1181 patients in total, of which 536 (43.39%) were male, 644 (54.53%) were female, and 1 (0.08%) identified as transgender. 382 (32.34%) had pulmonary, 642 (54.36%) had extrapulmonary and 157 patients (13.29%) had both pulmonary and extrapulmonary TB. 1071 (90.68%) were newly diagnosed, the remaining 110 (9.31%) being re-treatment cases. Out of 116 patients that underwent testing for suspected drug resistance, rifampicin resistance (RR) was detected in 7 cases (6.86%) and multi-drug resistance (MDR-TB) was detected in 1 (0.98%). 2 additional patients were diagnosed clinically as MDR-TB and all 10 given the PMDT regimen. 133 (11.26%) were deemed cured, 806 (68.25%) successfully completed treatment, 79 (6.68%) were lost to follow-up, 45 (3.81%) died, 9 (0.76%) were failures and in 14 (1.18%) patients, treatment regimen was changed. Outcome was not reported for 24 (2.03%) and not evaluated for 71 (6.01%).

Conclusion:India has adopted a successful endeavour for case notification of TB patients through the web-based portal, Nikshay. Periodic training for the field staff on data quality and completeness can be implemented for better harmonization. Higher proportion of treatment success under programmatic conditions is encouraging for TB control efforts.