Treatment and prognosis of nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary infection
Kurashima, A.
Nihon Rinsho. Japanese Journal of Clinical Medicine 56(12): 3199-3204
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0047-1852 PMID: 9883640 Document Number: 490113
In performing NTM chemotherapy, particularly to mycobacterium avium-intracellulare complex (MAC) infection, we find difficulty in planning a rational protocol, and thus depend on previous experiences. We have studied retrospectively the effects of previous combination chemo-therapy cases of pulmonary MAC infections at National Tokyo Hospital. We selected 135 cases which had received the same chemotherapy continuously over six months. Having set a mean CFU of 3 times sputum culture before treatment as 100%, we calculated a six-months sequential bacillary response to a regimen and plotted the bacillary response curves. The response curves of various regimens of multidrug chemotherapy indicate that combinations of more than 3 drugs including aminoglycoside and clarithromycin are effective. The survival curve of 104 cases which could be observed over 10 years showed that median survival time is about 10 years.