Population
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Patients with clinical signs and symptoms of active TB and a low pre-test probability of active TB
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Patients with clinical signs and symptoms of active TB and a high pre-test probability of active TB, who are identified at some point as having rifampicin resistance
Subgroups: those patients able to have an AFB microscopy, and those unable to have AFB microscopy
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Patients with clinical signs and symptoms of active TB (true positives or false positives)
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Intervention
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Immediate treatment for TB, i.e. antibiotics
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Early treatment with antibiotics, other than rifampicin
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Treatment for TB with antibiotics
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Comparators
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Treatment for TB delayed 6–8 weeks (due to negative AFB result, negative NAAT result, or clinical judgement that patient does not have TB based on histology, until culture results received)
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Standard treatment for active TB (including rifampicin), delayed treatment with alternative antibiotics
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No treatment for TB
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Outcomes
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Time to symptom resolution, quality of life, length of infectious period, number of contacts infected
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Time to symptom resolution, quality of life, length of infectious period, number of contacts infected
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AEs from antibiotic treatment
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Study design
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Randomised trials, cohort studies, case series or systematic reviews of these study designs
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Randomised trials, cohort studies, case series or systematic reviews of these study designs
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Systematic reviews of randomised trials
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Search period
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1990 – June 2014 or inception of the database if later than 1990
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1990 – June 2014 or inception of the database if later than 1990
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1990 – June 2014 or inception of the database if later than 1990
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Language
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Studies in languages other than English will only be translated if they represent a higher level of evidence than that available in the English language evidence-base
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Studies in languages other than English will only be translated if they represent a higher level of evidence than that available in the English language evidence-base
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Studies in languages other than English will only be translated if they represent a higher level of evidence than that available in the English language evidence-base
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