Investigating the Effectiveness of Long-term Regimen versus Short-term Regimen in Treating Drug Resistant Tuberculosis and their Treatment Outcomes

Abstract

Background Drug-resistant tuberculosis, defined by resistance to conventional antitubercular medications, presents significant treatment challenges. The efficacy of long-term versus short-term treatment regimens in managing this condition remains a critical area of investigation. Objective To assess how different treatment durations, both long-term and short-term regimen, influence the rates of treatment success, treatment failure, and mortality among patients suffering from drug-resistant tuberculosis. Methodology This prospective cohort study was conducted from June 2021 to December 2023 in the Department of pulmonology, Mardan Medical Complex, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. In this study DR-TB patients were enrolled. Patients were randomly assigned to long-term or short-term regimens. The long-term regimen (LTR) consists of treatment for 18-20 months, while the short-term regimen (STR) was 11 months, based on the latest World Health Organization (WHO) consolidated guidelines on drug-resistant tuberculosis. Data analyses were conducted with utilizing the SPSS (v.29.0) Results A total of 178 DR-TB patients were enrolled in this study. Gender distribution showed 45 males (47.36%) and 50 females (52.63%) in the STR group, and 46 males (55.42%) and 37 females (44.57%) in the LTR group. Significant age differences were noted, with mean ages of 34.16 years (±16.76) in the STR group and 41.71 years (±18.44) in the LTR group. Treatment outcomes revealed an 86.31% treatment success rate in the STR group vs 79.51% in the LTR group, with death rates of 4.21% vs. 9.63%. Conclusion Our findings suggest that, while both approaches produce comparable treatment success rate, however, short-term regimens may be a viable alternative to long-term treatments in specific patient groups that are younger, potentially improving adherence and lowering healthcare costs.