Analysis of direct costs during the treatment of tuberculosis in childhood

Incidence and prevalence of tuberculosis (TB) shows a decreasing tendency in Hungary. The medical care of these patients represents a substantial cost to the health services. We assessed the direct costs of paediatric patients with TB in a Hungarian hospital. Patients participating in the study were 9 children, with an average age of 11.17 +/- 6.34 years. In the study group there were two immigrant patients (22, 23%), two (22, 23%) had multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), five patients (62.5%) were contacts, six (66, 67%) had extrapulmonary tuberculosis and three (33, 34% suffered from other co-morbidities. The average direct cost of pulmonary TB was 2920 Euros, direct cost of MDR-TB was between 7300-9120 Euros. MDR-TB increases one and half times the period spent in hospital, two and half times the cost of inpatient care. Extrapulmonary TB with concomitant disease causes 3-7 times higher expenditures to the health service. According to our results we found significant differences between the cost of actual therapy and resources available; thus the compensation needs to be solved.