| Treatment outcome category | Definition |
| Cured | Treatment completed as recommended by the national policy without evidence of failure, and three or more consecutive cultures taken ≥30 days apart are negative after the intensive phase# |
| Treatment completed | Treatment completed as recommended by the national policy without evidence of failure, but no record that three or more consecutive cultures taken ≥30 days apart are negative after the intensive phase# |
| Treatment failed | Treatment terminated or need for permanent regimen change of at least two anti-TB drugs because of lack of conversion¶ by the end of the intensive phase#, or bacteriological reversion¶ in the continuation phase after conversion# to negative, or evidence of additional acquired resistance to fluoroquinolones or SLIDs, or adverse drug reactions |
| Died | A patient who dies for any reason during the course of treatment |
| Lost to follow-up | A patient whose treatment was interrupted for two consecutive months or more (this category was previously known as “defaulted”) |
| Not evaluated | A patient for whom no treatment outcome is assigned (this includes cases “transferred out” to another treatment unit and whose treatment outcome is unknown) |
SLID: second-line injectable drug. #: for “treatment failed”, lack of conversion by the end of the intensive phase implies that the patient does not convert within the maximum duration of intensive phase applied by the programme. If no maximum duration is defined, an 8-month cut-off is proposed. For regimens without a clear distinction between intensive and continuation phases, a cut-off 8 months after the start of treatment is suggested to determine when the criteria for “cured”, “treatment completed” and “treatment failed” start to apply. ¶: the terms “conversion” and “reversion” of culture as used here are defined as follows. Conversion (to negative): culture is considered to have converted to negative when two consecutive cultures, taken ≥30 days apart, are found to be negative. In such cases, the specimen collection date of the first negative culture is used as the date of conversion. Reversion (to positive): culture is considered to have reverted to positive when, after an initial conversion, two consecutive cultures, taken ≥30 days apart, are found to be positive. For the purpose of defining “treatment failed”, reversion is only considered when it occurs in the continuation phase. Reproduced and modified from [18] with permission from the publisher.