Table 1 Treatment Outcomes for Tuberculosis [17]
Outcome | Definition |
|---|---|
Cure | Patient whose baseline smear (or culture) was positive at the beginning of the treatment and is smear / culture negative in the last month of treatment and on at least one previous occasion at least 30 days prior. |
Treatment completed | Patient whose baseline smear (or culture) was positive at the beginning and has completed treatment but does not have a negative smear / culture in the last month of treatment and on at least one previous occasion more than 30 days prior. The smear examination may not have been done or the results may not be available at the end of treatment. |
Treatment failure | Patient whose baseline smear (or culture) was positive and remains or becomes positive again at 5 months or later during treatment. This definition excludes those patients who are diagnosed with rifampicin resistant or multi-drug resistant TB. |
Died | A patient who dies for any reason during the course of treatment. |
Lost to follow-up | A patient whose treatment was interrupted for two consecutive months or more. |
Not evaluated | A patient for whom no treatment outcome is assigned. (This includes cases “transferred out” to another treatment unit and whose treatment outcome is unknown). |
Treatment Success | The sum of cured and treatment completed. |