Mangala Ghatole1 , Virendra Kashetty2 , Prasanna Nakate3 , Manisha Tandale4
Drug resistant tuberculosis is an emerging as a major challenge to tuberculosis control programme. With increased access to second line of drugs to treat these cases, in-vitro evaluation of susceptibility for some second line of drugs was undertaken. Study included 150 strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from newly diagnosed cases and 110 strains from patients with history of previous anti- tuberculosis treatment isolated from pulmonary tuberculosis cases. Drug susceptibility testing was done using Lowenstein –Jensen media by absolute concentration method. 170 strains were susceptible to all drugs. 80 strains showed resistance to any one or more primary drugs. 3.3% showed any resistance to Isoniazid (INH) and 4% to Rifampicin (RMP) among new cases where as it was 8.2% and 6.3% among the strains from previously treated cases. Multi - drug resistance was more commonly observed among previously treated cases (7.2%) as against newly diagnosed cases (1.3%). Any resistance to Ofloxacin among both groups was higher than that of primary drugs. i.e., 5% and 14.5%. Similarly resistance to Moxifloxacin was 6.6% and 8.2%. Any resistance observed to Amikacin and Cycloserine among two groups was (4%, 5.4%) and (5.3%, 4.5%) respectively. Analysis of resistant pattern to second line of drugs among 10 Multi drug resistant (MDR) strains and 170 strains, which were susceptible to all primary drugs showed that resistance to Ofloxacin and Moxifloxacin was higher (30%, and 20%) among MDR strains than resistance among susceptible strains. Resistance to Amikacin and Cycloserine among MDR and susceptible strains was not significantly different.
