A concurrent comparison of home and sanatorium treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis in South India.

In India, as in most under-development countries, the tuberculosis problem is aggravated by an acute shortage of sanatorium beds. The number of active cases of tuberculosis in the country has been estimated at 2 (1/2) million, but only 23 000 tuberculosis beds are available. In these circumstances great importance attaches to the possibility of applying mass domiciliary chemotherapy as a substitute for sanatorium treatment in cases of pulmonary tuberculosis. The findings of the present study, based on a comparison of the two types of treatment over a period of 12 months, show that despite the manifest advantages of sanatorium care-rest, adequate diet, nursing and supervised medicine-taking-the merits of domiciliary chemotherapy are comparable to those of sanatorium treatment, and that it would therefore be appropriate to treat the majority of patients at home, provided an adequate service were established.