As you know, treatment is completed when the patient has taken the correct number of doses of the continuation-phase drugs. If the patient has missed some doses along the way, the duration of the treatment extends until all the doses in the patient's drug box are taken, which will be some days or weeks longer. Some patients do not complete treatment, either because they die during treatment or more likely they stop coming for treatment and cannot be located. When each patient completes treatment or stops coming for treatment, record that patient's outcome on the TB treatment registration form.

Possible treatment outcomes are defined as follows:

Cured

An intensively smear-positive patient who is sputum smear-negative at completion, or one month prior to the completion of treatment, and on at least one previous occasion (usually at the end of the second or fifth month).

Treatment completed

A patient who completed treatment but for whom smear results are not available at month seven or one month prior to the completion of treatment.

Treatment failure

A patient who remains or becomes again smear-positive at the end of month five or later during treatment. The same outcome would apply to a patient who was sputum smear-negative at the beginning of treatment and smear-positive at the end of the intensive phase.