Individualised therapy for patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis results in a high rate of treatment completion, Sydney doctors have found after a retrospective study.

However, among the cohort of 55 patients seen consecutively over 17 years, each experienced at least one adverse event, with ototoxicity the most common.

Only 2% of cases of TB in Australia are multidrug-resistant, and these patients undergo therapy tailored to the drug susceptibility profile of the causative bacterium and to patient-specific factors, according to the report in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.

Among the patients seen at seven Sydney chest clinics between 2001 and 2016, the median age was 32 years, and 54 were born outside Australia.