A person is diagnosed with tuberculous plural effusion. He used ATT for 50 days but the x-ray shows no improvement. Does it means that the TB is MDR?. The patient is Asymptomatic.
MDR cannot be confirmed or ruled out by the persisting effusion. But other clinical parameters such as weight gain, improved symptoms including appetite can be us as markers of treatment response. This could be organised effusion and if not drained early it could persist for life.
Plural effusion resorption usually varies from 2 - 4 months. Factors like, burden of disease, age, size of effusion, gender disparity (may be) all together influences the clinical progress. Hence, it is not advisable to conclude as MDR-TB without diagnosis.
mean time for resorption of TB effusion is 6 week. Check this:
Kan Zhai, Yong Lu, and Huan-Zhong Shi .Tuberculous pleural effusion. J Thorac Dis. 2016 Jul; 8(7): E486–E494.
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