[Study of the disease burden of patients with drug-resistant and drug-sensitive tuberculosis in Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the disease burden of drug-resistant and drug-sensitive tuberculosis (TB) patients in Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces. METHODS: Three hundred and two patients with TB, who had been involved in the project for drug resistance surveillance and completed the full course of treatment, were enrolled for this study. The proportion method for drug susceptibility was used. The method of disability adjusted life year (DALY) was applied to assess the disease burden of TB patients. RESULTS: The average DALYs of initial cases with drug-sensitive and drug-resistant TB, and retreated cases with drug-sensitive and drug-resistant TB, were 0.26, 0.68, 0.49, and 1.04, respectively. The average DALY loss of drug-resistant TB patients was 0.86 and that of drug-sensitive TB patients was 0.44. CONCLUSIONS: The values of DALY for initial and retreated cases with drug-resistant TB were 2 times higher than those for patients with drug-sensitive TB, indicating the higher disease burden in drug-resistant TB patients. Therefore, to reduce the disease burden of patients with drug-resistant TB, standardized protocols must be applied in the treatment of TB.