Retreatment of tuberculosis: aspects of previous episodes, Brazil, 1993-1994

Objective Recurrent patients due to treatment dropout or disease relapse ha ve been congesting health centers and impeding treatment routines and servi ces. The purpose is to study aspects of previous treatment and irregulariti es concerning the patient, medication and service organization and to evalu ate the outcome of retreatment. Methods A descriptive study of patient's personal characteristics, previous treatment and retreatment was carried out at Campinas, Sao Paulo State, in 1993 and 1994. Statistics analyses were performed using 95% confidence int erval with Yates correction, exact Fisher test and Mantel Haenszel qui-squa re for stratification. Results Retreatment sequence corroborated with the default rates (63%) that were lower, but still high among relapsed cases (28.4%). Only 34.1% of rel apsed cases did not present irregularities at previous treatment. Conclusions High proportions of retreatment and inadequate previous treatme nt are favouring drug resistance. Efforts should be taken to improving tube rculosis services efficiency because many irregularities are due to "failur es" in health services routine.