TB

A patient with the above cavitary lesion is diagnosed with active TB. He wants to know when he will be considered non-contagious?

TB Treatment

There are 3 criteria to be met before a patient with active TB is deemed “noncontagious”:

1.) adequate treatment for at least 2 weeks (with rifampin, isoniazid, pyrazinamide, and ethambutol- RIPE)

2.) improvement of symptoms

3.) three consecutive negative sputum smears (smears collected at 8- to 24-hour apart intervals with one smear as an early morning collection).