Clients on Opioid Substitution Therapy (OST) may be at risk of TB. We screened for tuberculosis in asymptomatic OST clients using Chest-X-ray (CXR) and sputum from those with CXR suggestive of TB were tested using Xpert MTB/Rif. Among 472 who underwent CXR, 1% had CXR suggestive of TB. The number needed to screen was 118 clients for one CXR suggestive of TB. All four clients with CXR suggestive of TB underwent MTB/Rif assay and one was diagnosed with TB. The TB patient was asymptomatic and could have been missed through the passive approach. We recommend further studies to explore ACF among OST clients.
OST Tuberculosis Active Case Finding Screening Chest X-RayAcknowledgements
The team would like to acknowledge the support made by volunteers, the staff of OST centre, district TB officers, and authorities of district hospital. We would like to thank Mr Mohit who was the district co-ordinator from VHAI under Project Axshya. Authors would like to acknowledge the support from The Global Fund TB grant to India.
Funding
Nil.
Authors’ Contributions
BMP and SC conceptualized the project. PB, RK, MS and MK were involved in the implementation of the project in the selected district of Punjab. BMP, PB and RK were involved in data collection, analysis and feedback to implementation. PT was involved in the analysis of data and prepared the manuscript. All authors involved in critical review and approval of the final manuscript.
Ethical Issues
The study was embedded into the routine programme implementation with requisite permissions from department of health at the district level. Clients were verbally consented and referred by medical officer for Chest-X-ray at private facility.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
Cite this paper
Prasad, B.M., Singh, M., Gupta, M., Thekkur, P, Kumar, R., Bhatnagar, P.C. and Chadha, S.S. (2019) Asymptomatic Screening of Clients on Opioid Substitution Therapy for Tuberculosis: An Experience from India. Journal of Tuberculosis Research, 7, 131-134. https://doi.org/10.4236/jtr.2019.73012
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