SUSCEPTIBILITY OF SOUTH INDIAN STRAINS OF MYCOBACTERIUM-TUBERCULOSIS TO TUBERACTINOMYCIN

A total of 114 strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolated from sputum samples of 114 patients of pulmonary tuberculosis in south India, were coded and tested for their in vitro susceptibility to tuberactinomycin (Tum) incorporated in Lowenstein-Jensen (LJ) medium. Of these strains, 95 (83.3%) and 15 (13.2%) were susceptible to Tum at 25 and 50 mg/l respectively. Only 4 (3.5%) strains were inhibited at 100 mg/1 or more. Of the 37 drug sensitive strains, 2 (5.4%) were not susceptible to Tum at 25 mg/l compared to 17 (22.1%) of 77 strains-resistant to one or more of antituberculosis drugs (P <0.02). The drug susceptibility pattern of the strains revealed that there was no significant association of resistance between Tum and streptomycin or rifampicin or ethambutol or ethionamide or isoniazid. However, 15 (53.6%) of 28 kanamycin (K) resistant strains were not susceptible to Tum at 25 mg/l. This cross resistance between Tum and K was further studied in 24 and 15 K sensitive and resistant strains respectively, by correlating their proportion resistance at 16 mg/l and it was found to have a significant positive correlation (r = 0.55; P<0.01).