Vitamin D and tuberculosis epidemiology
Vitamin D deficiency is a risk factor for tuberculosis, and vitamin D deficiency appears to impair the bodys ability to fight tuberculosis, but there is no clinical evidence to show that treating vitamin D deficiency prevents tuberculosis, although the available evidence is that it ought to. Reduced levels of vitamin D may explain the increased susceptibility of African-Americans to tuberculosis, and may also explain why phototherapy is effective for lupus vulgaris (tuberculosis of the skin) (a finding which won Niels Finsen the Nobel Prize in 1903), because skin exposed to sunlight naturally produces more vitamin D.
Concerns that tuberculosis treatment itself decreases vitamin D levels appear not to be an issue in clinical practice.Genetic differences in the vitamin D receptor in West African, Gujarati and Chinese populations have been noted to affect susceptibility to tuberculosis, but there is no data available in any population that shows vitamin D supplementation (that is, giving extra vitamin D to people with normal vitamin D levels) has any effect on susceptibility to TB. Vitamin D and tuberculosis treatment
Giving vitamin D to TB patients who are vitamin D deficient may be beneficial in a proportion of patients. When taken as a group, vitamin D supplementation appears to have no benefit when using sputum culture conversion as an endpoint, and giving vitamin D supplements to TB patients who have normal vitamin D levels does not provide any benefit from the point of view of TB.
In the 1970s it was recognised that combining isoniazid and rifampin could reduce the duration of treatment from 18 to nine months, and in the 1980s the duration of treatment was further shortened by adding pyrazinamide. National and international guidelines
See also
Modern era
ATC code J04 Drugs for treatment of TB
Mantoux test
Heaf test
TB Alliance
Tuberculosis management in the era before antituberculosis drugs
History of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis treatment in Colorado Springs (historical)

References
 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. == Further reading ==