ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: To find prevalence of drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolated from patients attending SMS Medical College, Jaipur during 1997-99. METHODS: Sputum samples from 164 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis were processed and cultured on Lowenstein Jensen medium and M.tuberculosis isolates were tested for drug sensitivity. RESULTS: M. tuberculosis was isolated in 122/164 (74.3%) samples and comprised 97.6% (122/125) of mycobacterial isolates. There were only three isolates of nontuberculous mycobacteria -one each of M.kansasii, M.avium and M.fortutium. Primary drug resistance in M.tuberculosis was estimated to be 3/44 (6.8%) to rifampicin, 6/44 (13.6%) to isoniazid and 2 strains (4.5%) were multi drug resistant i.e. resistant to both rifampicin and isoniazid. Among the isolates from cases with previous history of treatment of varying duration (acquired drug resistance) resistance to rifampicin was estimated to be 28.2% and for isoniazid to be 39.7%. 24.3% strains of these drug resistant isolates were multi drug resistant. CONCLUSIONS: While this information may not reflect true prevalence of drug resistance in the region this may help in further planning long term surveillance studies to know the trend of drug resistance in this area.