New Treatments for Multidrug-Resistant and Extensively Drug-Resistant TB (MDR- and XDR-TB)

The results of three studies on finding a treatment for multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR- and XDR-TB) , led by researchers from Medecins Sans Frontieres, were published in the

Emerging Infectious Diseases

journal.

In the patient has an adherence to the drugs, treatment becomes more difficult. The medicines with delamanid and bedaquiline showed good results in the cases of MDR- and XDR-TB.

In the first study about 68% of the patients reached positive progress in the treatment. In the second study on 27 children and teenagers all the patients became culture negative with different peculiarities. In the third study five patients with culture-confirmed XDR-TB were observed and as the researchers wrote in the publication, one patient had been cured, three patients were continuing therapy, and one patient with additional resistance to other TB drugs had died, according to the data of the end of the April.

"Although these data are preliminary and more work is needed, the findings from this cohort suggest that providing bedaquiline and delamanid in combination as part of therapy against XDR-TB is justified when clinical options are limited," - said the investigators.