Drug resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) is an emerging global public health threat. In 2018, 484,000 people developed TB that was resistant to rifampicin (RR-TB), and of these, 78% had multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). About 187,000 cases of MDR/RR-TB were detected and notified in this year. Among cases of MDR-TB in the same year, 6.2% were estimated to have extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) [1]. In the year 2017, one-third of global antimicrobial resistance deaths are attributed to MDR-TB [2].
Ethiopia is among the 30 high TB/MDR-TB burden countries around the globe. According to a study based on reference laboratory data, the overall prevalence of MDR-TB in Ethiopia was 11.6% [3]. Programmatic management of DR-TB was first initiated in 2009 in Ethiopia [4]. Currently, there are three nationally recommended DR-TB treatment regimens in Ethiopia; Standardized Longer Treatment Regimen (sLTR), Standardized Shorter Treatment Regimen (sSTR) and Individualized longer Treatment Regimen (ITR) [5].
Based on the treatment outcome, a TB patient may be categorized as cured, treatment completed, treatment failure, loss to follow up or died [6]. Lost to follow up (LTFU), formerly known as treatment default, refers to patients who received treatment for at least 4 weeks and discontinued treatment for more than eight consecutive weeks [5, 7]. The prevalence of patients with LTFU varies in different parts of the world. According to a systematic review in Sub Saharan Africa a range of 1–22.3% of MDR-TB patients were LTFU [8].
LTFU is one of the reasons for the development of acquired DR-TB. Patients who return to retreatment after LTFU were at a higher risk of developing DR-TB and are at a higher risk for poor prognosis and death [9–11]. Reports on economic burden of non-adherence to TB medicines indicated that an estimated 52 MDR-TB patients who were lost to follow-up are likely to have resulted in 5 patients developing XDR-TB, 3 new persons being infected with MDR-TB and 1 new person with XDR-TB, and 3 deaths. Moreover, LTFU is likely to have resulted in nearly USD 380,000 in additional costs (USD 325,000 in health service costs and USD 55,000 in household and society costs). This is equivalent to a cost of more than USD 7,000 per patient [12].
There are many primary studies conducted on the treatment outcome and associated factors of DR-TB. These primary studies provided variations in the estimate of the prevalence and associated factors of LTFU among DR-TB patients. There was one systematic review and meta-analysis on the treatment outcome of DR-TB in Ethiopia [13]. However, the outcome measurement in the mentioned review included unevaluated patients in the computation of LTFU. This review excluded such patients whose treatment outcome was not evaluated like transfer outs and patients still on treatment. To determine the final treatment outcome of a patient, that patient should go through the recommended regimen duration. As such, the prevalence of LTFU may be under estimated in the mentioned review article due to large size of the denominator.
Other systematic reviews generally considered factors associated with good or poor treatment outcomes. Here the poor outcome included death, treatment failure, treatment default and/or LTFU together. There is no pooled evidence on the factors associated, specifically, with treatment LTFU which is an important outcome related to the development of acquired drug resistance and of course playing an important role in the transmission of DR-TB within the community. Therefore, this review was aimed at estimating the prevalence of LTFU and associated factors among patients with MDR-TB in Ethiopia.