Setting: A local tuberculosis control program.
Objective: To examine treatment completion rates of patients with Mycobacterium bovis disease and compare them with those of patients with M. tuberculosis disease.
Design: Retrospective review of data from a tuberculosis surveillance computer database.
Results: Data from 167 M. bovis patients and 928 M. tuberculosis patients were examined. Rates of treatment completion were not significantly different (78% vs. 82%, chi2 = 1.60, P = 0.174), although death was more frequent among M. bovis patients (15% vs. 7%). The median time to treatment completion was 94 days longer for M. bovis patients.
Conclusion: Overall, treatment completion rates of M. bovis and M. tuberculosis patients were comparable, although the death rate was higher for M. bovis patients. The latter finding may be related to a particularly high death rate among HIV-infected M. bovis patients. Therapy duration was longer for M. bovis patients, probably because resistance to pyrazinamide prevented the use of a short-course (6-month) regimen.