@entity378 XXXX : are we measuring accurately?

@entity1 @entity1187 @entity64 @entity295 @entity378 @entity204 @entity1907
@entity204 among @entity378 @entity1 is one of the major reasons for non-attainment of 85% treatment success target set by World Health Organization. In this short paper, we evaluated whether the overall mortality rate in @entity1907 is being affected by other comorbid conditions. All new smear positive @entity1907 @entity1 (N =336), who started their treatment at the chest clinic of the Penang General Hospital, between March 2010 and February 2011, were followed-up until December 2011. @entity378 treatment outcomes were reported according to six treatment outcome categories recommended by World Health Organization. The outcome category 'died' was defined as 'a @entity1 who died due to @entity378 or other cause during @entity378 treatment'. Our findings showed that out of 336 smear positive @entity1907 @entity1 , 59 (17.6%) died during treatment (mortality rate = 1.003 cases per 1000 @entity1 -days of follow-up). Among the deceased @entity1 , the mean age was 55.8 years (SD =16.17) and 49 were male. According to the mortality review forms, 29 @entity204 were @entity378 -related, while the remaining 30 @entity1 died due to reasons other than @entity378 . @entity64 (n =7), @entity295 shock (n =4) and @entity1187 (n =4) were the most common @entity378 related reasons for mortality in the @entity1 . If the 30 @entity1 , for whom @entity378 was incidental to @entity204 , are excluded from the final cohort, the proportion of @entity1 in the 'died' outcome category could be reduced to 9.5%. The treatment outcome criterion (i.e., died) set by World Health Organization has limitations. Therefore, it requires improvement for more objective evaluation of the performance of the National @entity378 Program.
