Sowmya Mathew1 , Anoop Joseph
BACKGROUND This study intends to analyse the clinical findings, haematological and biochemical parameters of adverse drug effects of antituberculosis drugs in patients started on DOTS category-1. Since, ATT is an effective treatment strategy it is very important to identify these adverse effects at the earliest, treat them and improve compliance. Different studies have stated varying incidence of these adverse effects leading to discontinuation of ATT. Hence, this study intends to find out the occurrence of side effects of antituberculosis drugs in patients under DOTS category-1 (CAT-1) in our setup. MATERIALS AND METHODS Tuberculosis patients who were started on DOTS category-1 were observed for Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR) during the course of the treatment. 50 patients were analysed and studied. They were evaluated with clinical data, haematological and biochemical investigations. RESULTS Out of the 50 patients selected for this study, 30 patients developed atleast one or more types of ADR and a total of 9 types of adverse drug reactions were observed. The most common symptom ADR observed in this study were GI symptoms like nausea (56%), vomiting (30%), loss of taste (14%), dyspepsia (24%), abdominal pain (20%), diarrhoea (4%), jaundice (8%), others were malaise (16%) and skin rash (2%). The mean onset time of the adverse drug effects were observed within 7 days and mean duration time of the adverse drug effects were seen up to 2 months after start of ATT. CONCLUSION This study showed that DOTS treatment is an effective and safe treatment strategy as most of the adverse drug reactions noted were of a mild variety (Hartwig’s scale level 1) and were managed with symptomatic medications. Gastrointestinal symptoms were the most common observed ADR and most of the symptoms subsided within the intensive phase of the treatment. The most common laboratory abnormality seen was rise in liver enzymes and bilirubin.
