Clinical Microbiology: Open Access

Costs and cost effectiveness of new tools for diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis in a Brazilian hospital setting

3^rd International Conference on Clinical Microbiology & Microbial Genomics

September 24-26, 2014 Valencia Convention Centre, Spain

Luciene Cardoso Scherer

Accepted Abstracts: Clin Microbial

Abstract:

Recent worldwide data on TB show that Brazil is among the 22 countries that comprise high loads of the disease; it is estimated that these countries concentrate approximately 80% of all new cases in the world. Direct microscopy has low sensitivity for TB diagnosis and cultures take 3 to 6 weeks. According to recent studies, the rate of co-infection of TB/HIV is estimated at 3% to 4%. Therefore, new tools for TB diagnosis are necessary, especially in health settings with a high prevalence of HIV/TB co-infection. In Latin American, some studies have evaluated the costs and cost-effectiveness of new tools for TB diagnosis and treatment (PCR techniques, GenoType? MTBDR, GeneXpert? MTB/RIF) showing the costs of the health system and their families; the costs for patients with MDR-TB; cost-effectiveness analysis for patients with TB in supervised and self-administered treatment. Clinical algorithms can increase the pretest likelihood of TB diagnosis in high and low income countries. Since substantial economic costs are related to unnecessary isolation of patients, a clinical model to predict active TB in patients admitted to hospitals can become an important tool for improving infection control in resource constrained countries with high disease burden. However, in Brazil the real costs of TB until are poorly estimated and the overall costs of TB are not perceived by government entities given the fragmentation of the involvement of all three levels of local, state and federal government levels. In addition, the new tools inside the clinical routine and to make rational decisions about the implementation of new tools the cost-effectiveness studies are essential. In the lecture, author will describe the studies conducted by her group, where the direct and indirect costs for diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis in patients admitted to a Public Health Hospital Unit in Brazil was evaluated and the cost-effectiveness analysis of molecular methods (PCR) for the rapid diagnosis of TB and clinical algorithms to predict active TB in patients admitted in Brazilian hospitals.

Biography :

Luciene Cardoso Scherer graduated in Pharmacy from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in 1995, and graduated in Biomedicine from the Universidade Luterana do Brasil in 2009, and received the masters in Biological Sciences (Biochemistry) from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in 2000 and PhD in Biological Sciences (Biochemistry) from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in 2008. Currently, she is a Professor at the Universidade Luterana do Brasil, acting in Biomedicine and Pharmacy graduation courses and in the Post Graduation Program in Public Health. She has experience in the area of Health Technology Assessment. She was accepted by the Tuberculosis Research Unit, in IDT-HUCFF Hospital Complex, in Medical School of Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro to do studies in post doctoral program. She has published recently 2 papers in reputed journals and has served as an editorial board member of repute in Health Technology Assessment and in the areas of monitoring and diagnostics of infectious diseases.