[Follow-up discussion on restructuring the medical-service system].

The Japan Tuberculosis Society organized symposia on restructuring the medical-service system at the 84th and 86th annual meetings. These symposia clarified the following issues and concerns. It is becoming difficult to maintain tuberculosis beds in wards in many areas, since beds required for tuberculosis are declining due to the decreasing incidence of tuberculosis and shortened hospitalization periods.

[Association between clustered strain of M. tuberculosis and infectiousness index of tuberculosis cases in a population-based IS6110-RFLP analysis].

Objective: Isolates of M. tuberculosis were analyzed for their DNA fingerprints to facilitate understanding of ongoing transmission of tuberculosis in Sapporo (population 1.87 million), Japan, where the incidence rate of tuberculosis was 15.

[Comparative study of bactec MGIT 960 AST and conventional proportion method using Ogawa medium for the drug susceptibility testing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to isoniazid].

Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of drug susceptibility testing to isoniazid with BACTEC MGIT 960 (MGIT AST) comparing with the standard proportion method using Ogawa medium.

Method: A total of 1109 M. tuberculosis strains, which were selected from the collection of RYOKEN drug resistance survey in 2002, were selected and subjected to the susceptibility testing to isoniazid using MGIT AST and 1% Ogawa standard methods.

[The improvement of the enforcement rate of the standard regimen (A) of tuberculosis chemotherapy by the introduction of common database system for tuberculosis].

Objective: The purpose of this study was to improve the enforcement rate of the standard regimen (A) of tuberculosis chemotherapy. SUBJECTIVE AND METHODS: We introduced the common database system for tuberculosis in three national hospitals in Hokkaido. From January 2002 to December 2003, we collected the anonymous informations of the patients with tuberculosis at the start of treatment, at the discharge and at the end of treatment.