Editorials Hepatotoxicity of antituberculosis drugsHer Majesty's Coroner for Birmingham, where there is a major liver unit, has drawn attention to the number of deaths from liver failure associated with the antituberculosis drugs,' and has called for greater awareness by both patients and general practitioners of the occasional cases of hepatotoxicity.This was followed by a reminder from the Committee on Safety of Medicine (CSM) of fatal hepatic reactions.2The CSM advice was that liver function tests should be undertaken before treatment and, if abnormal, repeated during treatment, and that liver function should be checked in patients who develop symptoms or signs suggestive of hepatitis, or who become generally unwell during treatment.This advice differs from that given by the Joint Tuberculosis Committee's chemotherapy guidelines3 which state:
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Ormerod et al. (1996) studied this question.
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