The HIV+/TB+ group had a similar overall likelihood of treatment success (HIV+/TB+ cure or completion: 85.7%; HIV-/TB+ cure or completion: 92.6%, p = 0.2).
Successful treatment included cure and completion of treatment.
Good treatment outcome was defined as bacteriological cure or completion of treatment.
Treatment success was defined as cure or completion of treatment (3 ).
We considered TB cure, successful completion of TB treatment and drug resistance development as proxies for adherence.
The lack of effects of direct observation in improving cure and completion rates is surprising but reflects the complexity of adherence.
First, unlike previous reports of high death rates associated with MDR-TB, most of our patients met the definition of cure upon completion of treatment.
Future studies should have standardized outcome measures such as TB cure, successful completion of TB treatment, and development of drug resistance.
For our main analyses, clinical outcome was defined as good (i.e., cure or completion of treatment) or poor (i.e., treatment failure, lost to follow-up or death).
In contrast, one meta-analysis of prospective studies found no major benefit of DOT compared to self-administered therapy (SAT) for program-defined outcomes such as "cure" and "completion of treatment" in both active and latent tuberculosis [ 13].
A triangular distribution (mean: 37 years, range: 1 62 years) determined the age at which individuals entered the model infected with CL. 3 During the first year, cases could be treated, cured, re-treated upon treatment failure, and cured after completion of the second treatment round.
