This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Bacterial Infections  • Tuberculosis/ Other Mycobacterium  • World Health  • Public Health, Other  • Drug Therapy  • Drug Therapy, Other  • Infectious Diseases  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

N. Sarita Shah, MD, MPH; Robert Pratt, BS; Lori Armstrong, PhD; Valerie Robison, DDS, MPH, PhD; Kenneth G. Castro, MD; J. Peter Cegielski, MD, MPH

JAMA. 2008;300(18):2153-2160.

Context  Worldwide emergence of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) has raised global public health concern, given the limited therapy options and high mortality.

Objectives  To describe the epidemiology of XDR-TB in the United States and to identify unique characteristics of XDR-TB cases compared with multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and drug-susceptible TB cases.

Design, Setting, and Patients  Descriptive analysis of US TB cases reported from 1993 to 2007. Extensively drug-resistant TB was defined as resistance to isoniazid, a rifamycin, a fluoroquinolone, and at least 1 of amikacin, kanamycin, or capreomycin based on drug susceptibility test results from initial and follow-up specimens.

Main Outcome Measures  Extensively drug-resistant TB case counts and trends, risk factors for XDR-TB, and overall survival.

Results  A total of 83 cases of XDR-TB were reported in the United States from 1993 to 2007. The number of XDR-TB cases declined from 18 (0.07% of 25 107 TB cases) in 1993 to 2 (0.02% of 13 293 TB cases) in 2007, reported to date. Among those with known human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) test results, 31 (53%) were HIV-positive. Compared with MDR-TB cases, XDR-TB cases were more likely to have disseminated TB disease (prevalence ratio [PR], 2.06; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.19-3.58), less likely to convert to a negative sputum culture (PR, 0.55; 95% CI, 0.33-0.94), and had a prolonged infectious period (median time to culture conversion, 183 days vs 93 days for MDR-TB; P < .001). Twenty-six XDR-TB cases (35%) died during treatment, of whom 21 (81%) were known to be HIV-infected. Mortality was higher among XDR-TB cases than among MDR-TB cases (PR, 1.82; 95% CI, 1.10-3.02) and drug-susceptible TB cases (PR, 6.10; 95% CI, 3.65-10.20).

Conclusion  Although the number of US XDR-TB cases has declined since 1993, coinciding with improved TB and HIV/AIDS control, cases continue to be reported each year.

Author Affiliations: Division of Tuberculosis Elimination, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia. Dr Shah is now with the Department of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

XDR-TB in the U.S.
JWatch Infect. Diseases 2008;2008:1-1.
FULL TEXT