TB Consultation

Background

Tuberculosis experts at the New Jersey Medical School Global Tuberculosis Institute (GTBI) at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey provide medical consultation to health care providers via a toll-free number 1-800-4 TB DOCS (1-800-482-3627) and via e-mail (mc_gtbi@njms.rutgers.edu). Experienced clinicians are available to answer questions about difficult cases including multi drug-resistant and pediatric TB, TB and HIV/AIDS co-infection, and other cases with difficult medical and public health management issues. Staff will also respond to inquiries from patients and the general public.

As a Regional Training and Medical Consultation Center (RTMCC), the GTBI is tasked by the CDC with strengthening medical consultation throughout the Northeast United States. Therefore, serving as a resource to TB medical consultants in the state and big city TB programs in the Northeastern Region is a high priority. You are encouraged to contact the TB program in your area which also provides medical consultation and may have resources to assist in the treatment and management of TB cases and their contacts.

Consultation Hours

9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Eastern Time
Monday through Friday

Voicemail is available to receive your calls 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.
Calls will be answered within one business day.

Important Considerations for Requestors

The information provided by our physician consultants is not a replacement for local expertise or your state TB program protocols. Information is offered as clinical decision support, is advisory in nature, and is not intended to replace local healthcare decision-making or provision. Requestors are free to disregard any advice offered. Final clinical decisions are the sole responsibility of the healthcare provider.

TB is a reportable disease and as such, healthcare professionals have a responsibility to act in accordance with local, regional, and state protocols, administrative rules and statutes. The TB program in your area is the ultimate public health authority.

Core TB Resources

The GTBI has compiled a set of Core TB Resources consisting of published guidelines from CDC and other national organizations, treatment pocket cards, TB fact sheets, and CDC or Regional Training and Consultation Centers products that TB medical consultants can use when responding to questions from health care providers. These can be accessed in one of two ways:

  • GTBI Core TB Resources [ZIP, 27MB) Once downloaded, you can save the PDF documents on your hard drive or on a CD-ROM for ready access and retrieval. Documents are organized under sets of folders to facilitate searches.
  • GTBI Listing of Core TB Resources with Links. Once opened, you can click on the web link for each item to read, print, or download each individual document

CDC Division of TB Elimination TB-Related Guidelines This website contains an exhaustive list of TB-related guidelines pubished specifically by the CDC. However, these do not include some guidelines published by other national organizations (e.g., ATS and IDSA) that are included in GTBI Core TB Resources.

TB Fact Sheets Developed by CDC, these 2-page fact sheets provide health care providers with summary information and references related to current recommendations in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of TB. These are included in the GTBI Core TB Resources.

For providers outside the USA, please refer to TB recources and guidelines published the WHO's TB website: http://www.who.int/tb/en/