Alarming non-compliance to antituberculosis chemotherapy

An attempt was made to estimate compliance with antituberculosis chemotherapy by measuring the treatment completion rate. At the end of one year follow-up of 806 newly diagnosed patients in an urban outpatient setting, only 58 [7%] came to collect their supplies of medicines for the required duration. Such a high drop-out rate, [93%] is very alarming, as it will not only leave a large number of patients uncured, but provides constant sources of infection in the community. The findings indicate that besides taking established measures for improving compliance, such as short term chemotherapies, there is an urgent need to understand the specific reasons for noncompliance in our patient population