Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis care in the United States

BACKGROUND: To examine the utilization of the Tuberculosis (TB) Centers of Excellence (COE) medical consultation service and evaluate how these services were being employed for patients in relation to multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). METHODS: Medical consults are documented in a secure database. The database was queried for MDR-TB consultations over the period 1 January 2013–31 December 2017. All were analyzed to assess provider type, center, setting, year of call, and type of patient (pediatric vs. adult). A subgroup was randomly selected for thematic analysis. RESULTS: The centers received 1560 MDR-TB consultation requests over this period. Providers requesting consults were primarily physicians (55%). The majority of requests were from public health departments (64%) and for adult patients (80%). Four major topic areas emerged: 1) initial management of MDR-TB, 2) MDR-TB longitudinal treatment and complications, 3) management of persons exposed to MDR-TB, and 4) MDR-TB treatment completion. CONCLUSIONS: Analysis of these consultations provides insight into the type of expert advice about MDR-TB that was provided. These findings highlight topics where increased medical training and education may help to improve MDR-TB-related practices.