Clinical evaluation on the duration of hospitalization for patients with pulmonary tuberculosis

: In 1996, six-month short course regimen containing PZA was adopted as the standard method of chemotherapy for tuberculosis. According we reevaluated discharge criteria for patients with pulmonary tuberculosis and tried to shorten the duration of hospitalization. We investigated retrospectively the duration of hospitalization for patients with pulmonary tuberculosis who were admitted to the Tenri Hospital. PZA was used for 23.3% of patients who were admitted during 1992 to 1996 (group A, N = 200), and 80.1% of patients who were admitted during 1996 to 2000 (group B, N = 234). The time needed to bacterial negative conversion was significantly shortened from 2.5 months in group A to 1.8 months in group B. The mean duration of hospitalization for patients with pulmonary tuberculosis was significantly shortened from 133.8 days in group A to 63.7 days in group B. Moreover, the mean duration of hospitalization for patients with smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis was significantly shortened from 147.5 days in group A to 73.0 days in group B. There was no significant difference between group A and group B as to the rate of adverse reactions, discontinuation of drug taking and recurrence of the disease. We concluded that the duration of hospitalization for patients with pulmonary tuberculosis could be shortened by applying PZA in the initial phase of tuberculosis chemotherapy.