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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Infect Dis. Nov 25, 2015; 5(4): 77-85
Published online Nov 25, 2015. doi: 10.5495/wjcid.v5.i4.77
Epidemiological perspective of drug resistant extrapulmonary tuberculosis
Pravin Kumar Singh, Amita Jain
Pravin Kumar Singh, Amita Jain, Department of Microbiology, King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh 226003, India
Author contributions: Both the authors collected the relevant information and wrote the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Pravin Kumar Singh is employed by Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostic, however author alone is responsible for the views expressed in this paper.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Amita Jain, Professor, Department of Microbiology, King George’s Medical University, Shah Mina Road, Chowk, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh 226003, India. amita602002@yahoo.com
Telephone: +91-522-2258633 Fax: +91-522-2258633
Received: January 15, 2015
Peer-review started: January 16, 2015
First decision: March 20, 2015
Revised: August 11, 2015
Accepted: September 7, 2015
Article in press: September 8, 2015
Published online: November 25, 2015
Processing time: 316 Days and 0.7 Hours
Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the leading infectious diseases causing significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Although, pulmonary TB is the most common presentation and is the main transmissible form of the disease, extrapulmonary TB also significantly contributes to the burden of disease and can cause severe complications and disabilities. At present, the most serious issue with TB control programme is emergence of multi and extensively drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain world-wide. As the number of drug resistant pulmonary TB is increasing around the world, the number of drug resistant TB with extrapulmonary manifestations are also on rise. However, there is surprisingly scant information in medical literatures on prevalence and impact of extrapulmonary drug-resistant TB. Here, we appraise the recent epidemiological studies that underpin the status and impact of drug resistance in TB cases with extrapulmonary manifestations.

Keywords: Extrapulmonary tuberculosis; Tuberculosis; Epidemiology; Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Drug resistance

Core tip: The emergence of highly drug resistant (DR) Mycobacterium tuberculosis and human immunodeficiency virus epidemic has paved the way for resurgence of tuberculosis (TB). Extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB), accounts for a significant proportion of all notified TB cases, is a persistent global health issue. Although DR-EPTB is uncommon, but the increasing rate of DR-pulmonary TB around the world has heightened our concern for DR-EPTB too. Unfortunately, systematic surveillance data on DR-EPTB is lacking, however, sporadic information from different countries has begun to accumulate. Here, we aim to provide current understanding on epidemiological scenario of DR-EPTB and also to address some of the key challenges associated with diagnosis, control and management of DR-EPTB.