Authors: Savaş KANSOY, Nazmi KURTAŞ, Sadık AKŞİT, Serap AKSOYLAR, Işın YAPRAK, Suat ÇAĞLAYAN
Abstract: A total of 18 children with primary pulmonary tuberculosis were examined to determine the efficacy of intermittent, short course chemothrapy (ISCC) consisting of daily streptomycine (SM), rifampicin (RIF) and isoniazid (INH) for a two-week period, followed by INH and RIF twice weekly for another 8.5 months. As the control group, another 15 patients were given conventional chemotherapy (CC) consisting of daily SM for 40 days, RIF for 9 months and INH for 12 months. At the sixth month of therapy, the response to treatment was complete in both groups. No recurrences were observed in any patient during the 12-month period after the completion of the therapy. It was concluded that a short course, intermittent therapy against pulmonary tuberculosis provides a safe alternative to the conventional, one-year duration chemotherapy. Thus, instead of concventional, long-term, everyday multi-drug therapy modalities, this regimen is proposed for the teratment of children with tuberculosis.
Keywords: Childhood, Pulmonary tuberculosis, Intermittent chemotherapy