Elsevier

Respiratory Medicine

Volume 100, Issue 10, October 2006, Pages 1834-1842
Respiratory Medicine

Side effects due to primary antituberculosis drugs during the initial phase of therapy in 1149 hospitalized patients for tuberculosis

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmed.2006.01.014Get rights and content
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Summary

Objective

Side effects of the most commonly used primary antituberculosis (anti-TB) drugs may be mild as well as fatal. The aim of this study was to evaluate the side effects of and the risk factors for developing side effects against anti-TB drugs.

Patients and methods

Records of 1149 patients with established tuberculosis who initially received anti-TB therapy were evaluated retrospectively. The major side effects, which resulted in a definitive termination from 1 or more drugs related to anti-TB therapy, and the risk factors associated with these side effects, were analyzed.

Results

Ninety-five patients (8.3%), constituting 104 cases in total, experienced side effects. Although the frequency of drug reactions were increased from 0.6% at ages <20 to 5.2% at ages 20–40, no gender or age differences were observed between patients who did and did not have side effects. While asymptomatic liver function disturbance was established in 56 of the patients (4.9%) with initiation of anti-TB therapy, the rate of hepatotoxicity was found to be 2.4% in this present study. No age or gender differences were observed among those who had hepatotoxicity and who had not. The major side effects were ototoxicity (1.7%), hepatotoxicity (0.8%), neuropsychiatric manifestations (0.7%), and hyperuricemia (0.6%).

Conclusions

It must be remembered that severe side effects associated with anti-TB drugs were encountered with different frequencies especially among patients hospitalized for pulmonary tuberculosis, and these patients should be followed up by closer monitoring for side effects related to anti-TB drugs.

Keywords

Side effects
Antituberculosis (anti-TB) drugs
Hepatotoxicity
Ototoxicity
Neuropsychiatric manifestations
Hyperuricemia

Cited by (0)

This article has been seen and approved by all authors involved and is neither being published nor being considered for publication elsewhere. (It was presented as a thematic poster in the 12th European Respiratory Society Annual Congress 2002, September 14–18, Stockholm.)