Why are clinicians reluctant to treat smear-negative tuberculosis? An inquiry about treatment thresholds in Rwanda

Medical Decision Making

Volumn 27, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 53-60

  Basinga, Paulin ^a   Moreira, Juan ^b,d   Bisoffi, Zeno ^c   Bisig, Bettina ^b   Van Den Ende, Jef ^b,e  

^a UNIVERSITY OF RWANDA   (Rwanda)

^b INSTITUTE OF TROPICAL MEDICINE   (Belgium)

^c Centro Per Le Malattie Tropicali   (Italy)

^d Centro de Epidemiologia Comunitaria Y Medicina Tropical   (Ecuador)

^e Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali   (Rwanda)

Author keywords

Rwanda; Smear negative; Threshold; Tuberculosis

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CALCULATION; CONTROLLED STUDY; COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS; DATA ANALYSIS; HUMAN; HUMAN EXPERIMENT; MEDICAL LITERATURE; MORBIDITY; MORTALITY; NORMAL HUMAN; RISK ASSESSMENT; RWANDA; STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE; TUBERCULOSIS;

HEALTH CARE COSTS; HUMANS; RWANDA; SPUTUM; TUBERCULOSIS;

EID: 33846047057     PISSN: 0272989X     EISSN: 1552681X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0272989X06297104     Document Type: Article

References (42)

1. World Health Organization. Global Tuberculosis Control - Surveillance, Planning, Financing. Geneva (Switzerland): World Health Organization ; 2002.
2. Colebunders R, Bastian I. A review of the diagnosis and treatment of smear-negative pulmonary tuberculosis. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis. 2000 ; 4: 97-107.
3. Pauker SG, Pauker SP, Wong JB. The utility of thresholds and the threshold utility. Med Decis Making. 1987 ; 7: 201-202.
4. Programme National Intégré de Lutte. Epidémiologie de la tuber-culose au Rwanda. Kigali (Rwanda): Programme National Intégré de Lutte; 2000.
5. Aber VR, Allen BW, Mitchison DA, Ayuma P, Edwards EA, Keyes AB. Quality control in tuberculosis bacteriology. 1. Laboratory studies on isolated positive cultures and the efficiency of direct smear examination. Tubercle. 1980 ; 61: 123-133.
6. Levy H, Feldman C, Sacho H, van der MH, Kallenbach J, Koornhof H. A reevaluation of sputum microscopy and culture in the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis. Chest. 1989 ; 95: 1193-1197.
7. Siddiqi K, Lambert ML, Walley J. Clinical diagnosis of smear-negative pulmonary tuberculosis in low-income countries: the current evidence. Lancet Infect Dis. 2003 ; 3: 288-296.
8. Pauker SG, Kassirer JP. Therapeutic decision making: a cost-benefit analysis. N Engl J Med. 1975 ; 293: 229-234.
9. Van den Ende J, Lynen L. Diagnosis of malaria disease. In: Carosi G, Castelli F, editors. Handbook of Malaria Infection in the Tropics. Bologna (Italy): Organizzazione per la Cooperazione Sanitaria Internazionale ; 1997. p 137-150.
10. Van den Ende J, Mukaminega M. Attributable fraction of malaria in Mali by Dicko et al. (2005). Trop Med Int Health. 2005 ; 10: 1207-1207.
11. Dekay ML. The difference between Blackstone-like error ratios and the probabilistics standards of proof. Law Soc Inq. 1996 ; 21: 95-132.
12. Zweig MH, Campbell G. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) plots: a fundamental evaluation tool in clinical medicine. Clin Chem. 1993 ; 39: 561-577.
13. Pauker SG, Kassirer JP. The threshold approach to clinical decision making. N Engl J Med. 1980 ; 302: 1109-1117.
14. Kopelman RI, Wong JB, Pauker SG. Clinical problem-solving: a little math helps the medicine go down. N Engl J Med. 1999 ; 341: 435-439.
15. Ubel PA, Loewenstein G, Schwarz N, Smith D. Misimagining the unimaginable: the disability paradox and health care decision making. Health Psychol. 2005 ; 24 (4 suppl). S57 - S62.
16. Gafni A. Willingness-to-pay as a measure of benefits: relevant questions in the context of public decisionmaking about health care programs. Med Care. 1991 ; 29: 1246-1252.
17. O'Brien B, Gafni A. When do the "dollars" make sense? Toward a conceptual framework for contingent valuation studies in health care. Med Decis Making. 1996 ; 16: 288-299.
18. Behr MA, Warren SA, Salamon H, et al. Transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from patients smear-negative for acid-fast bacilli. Lancet. 1999 ; 353: 444-449.
19. Ritov I, Baron J. Protected values and omission bias. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process. 1999 ; 79: 79-94.
20. Springett VH. Ten-year results during the introduction of chemotherapy for tuberculosis. Tubercle. 1971 ; 52: 73-87.
21. Tuberculosis in a rural population of South India: a five-year epidemiological study. Bull World Health Organ. 1974 ; 51: 473-488.
22. Grzybowski S, Enarson D. Results in pulmonary tuberculosis patients under various treatment program conditions. Bull Int Union Tuberc. 1978 ; 53: 70-75.
23. Zierski M, Bek E. Side-effects of drug regimens used in short-course chemotherapy for pulmonary tuberculosis: a controlled clinical study. Tubercle. 1980 ; 61: 41-49.
24. Gonzalez Montaner LJ, Dambrosi A, Manassero M, Dambrosi VM. Adverse effects of antituberculosis drugs causing changes in treatment. Tubercle. 1982 ; 63: 291-294.
25. Combs DL, O'Brien RJ, Geiter LJ. USPHS Tuberculosis Short-Course Chemotherapy Trial 21: effectiveness, toxicity, and acceptability. The report of final results. Ann Intern Med. 1990 ; 112: 397-406.
26. Steele MA, Burk RF, DesPrez RM. Toxic hepatitis with isoniazid and rifampin: a meta-analysis. Chest. 1991 ; 99: 465-471.
27. Ormerod LP, Horsfield N. Frequency and type of reactions to antituberculosis drugs: observations in routine treatment. Tuber Lung Dis. 1996 ; 77: 37-42.
28. Garner P, Holmes A. Tuberculosis. Clin Evid. 2002 ; 7: 747-756.
29. Yee D, Valiquette C, Pelletier M, Parisien I, Rocher I, Menzies D. Incidence of serious side effects from first-line antituberculosis drugs among patients treated for active tuberculosis. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2003 ; 167: 1472-1477.
30. van Hest R, Baars H, Kik S, et al. Hepatotoxicity of rifampinpyrazinamide and isoniazid preventive therapy and tuberculosis treatment. Clin Infect Dis. 2004 ; 39: 488-496.
31. Hunink M, Glasziou P, Siegel J, et al. Decision making in health and medicine: integrating evidence and values. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press ; 2001.
32. Holmes MM, Rovner DR, Rothert ML, et al. Women's and physicians' utilities for health outcomes in estrogen replacement therapy. J Gen Intern Med. 1987 ; 2: 178-182.
33. Feinstein AR. The "chagrin factor" and qualitative decision analysis. Arch Intern Med. 1985 ; 145: 1257-1259.
34. Tversky A, Kahneman D. The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science. 1981 ; 211: 453-458.
35. Asch DA, Baron J, Hershey JC, et al. Omission bias and pertussis vaccination. Med Decis Making. 1994 ; 14: 118-123.
36. Cohen BJ, Pauker SG. How do physicians weigh iatrogenic complications? J Gen Intern Med. 1994 ; 9: 20-23.
37. Baron J, Spranca M. Protected values. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process. 1997 ; 70: 1-16.
38. Kassirer JP. Our stubborn quest for diagnostic certainty: a cause of excessive testing. N Engl J Med. 1989 ; 320: 1489-1491.
39. Shulman ST. T. Duckett Jones and his criteria for the diagnosis of acute rheumatic fever. Pediatr Ann. 1999 ; 28: 9-12.
40. Samb B, Kamanfu G, Henzel D, et al. Diagnostic des tubercu-loses à bacilloscopie négative en milieu hospitalier Est Africain. Int J Tuberc Dis. 1997 ; 1: 25-30.
41. Christensen-Szalanski JJ, Bushyhead JB. Physician's use of probabilistic information in a real clinical setting. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 1981 ; 7: 928-935.
42. Yin R. Case Study Research: Design and Methods. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks (CA): Sage ; 2003.