KARACHI, Feb 14: Experts at a session held in the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre on Thursday stressed the need for starting an antituberculous programme in the country.

Dr Nadeem Rizvi, head of the department of chest medicine, presented a paper on acquired drug resistance in tuberculosis. He underlined the need for treating drug-resistant tuberculosis at specialized centres, adding that treatment of such cases at the department of chest medicine showed remarkable results.

Dr Nasir Hussain of the department of chest medicine, JPMC, presented a paper on treatment outcome of tuberculosis in patients resistant to major first line drugs Rifampicin and INH. His study showed a cure rate of above 90 per cent indicating that proper diagnosis and good care could provide excellent results even in difficult cases like MDR tuberculosis.

Dr Fayyaz Hussain of the Aga Khan University Hospital gave a lecture on new strategies in asthma management.

Dr Afridi and Dr Shahina of the department of chest medicine, JPMC, gave an audit report on COPD and antituberculous treatment in OPD respectively.

Dr Shahina’s paper stated the problems faced by a tertiary care chest unit treating patients at a primary level and highlighted reasons of default by these patients.

Dr Afridi’s paper highlighted various aspects of COPD management in patients admitted to the hospital.

Dr Javed Khan of AKUH presented two papers highlighting deficiencies of curriculum with reference to teaching tuberculosis in medical colleges. He gave an insight into smoking patterns in medical colleges.

Surgical aspects of chest disease were discussed by Dr Raheel Hussain, assistant professor, Civil Hospital, and Prof Faheem-ul-Haq, department of chest surgery, JPMC. Prof Faheem-ul-Haq presented a paper on surgical treatment for pulmonary aspergilloma. Dr Raheel Hussain of CHK gave a perspective on surgical aspects of pulmonary tuberculosis and another paper related to surgical management of chest wall tuberculosis was presented by Dr Ali Raza of the department of chest surgery, JMPC.

The session was presided over by Prof Zakaullah Beg.