PHWR Public Health Weekly Report

One of the reasons for treatment failure is the development of drug resistance by gene mutation. Among these, disputed mutations that cause discrepancies between phenotype and susceptibility test results may lead to failure of initial standard treatment or inadequate treatment. It mainly induces low-level resistance; however, the effect of anti-tuberculosis drugs might be diminished, which may lead to prolonged duration of treatment or development of multi-drug resistance.
We conducted a propspective observational cohort study to enroll adult patients with pulmonary TB between November 2016 and September 2018 at three university-affiliated tertiary hospitals in South Korea. The purpose of this study was (1) to describe clinical characteristics of drug resistance and identify gene mutations related to drug resistance, (2) to compare results of phenotypic and genotypic drug susceptibility tests and identify discordant results, and (3) to assess treatment outcome of Mycobacterium tuberculosis with disputed mutation. This cohort study will explore ways to improve TB diagnosis and treatment according to types of drug resistance mutation. This manuscript introduces the establishment and operation of the TB cohort study.

Key words Tuberculosis (TB), Drug susceptibility test, Genotype, Treatment, Treatment outcomes