No special measures to identify patients with TB may benefit from shorter treatment

Tuberculosis (TB) is a virus difficult to treat and requires six months to heal several antibiotics. To fight against the pandemic of tuberculosis, a shorter and simpler drug treatment would be an enormous progress, since most of tuberculosis occurs in settings with limited resources the health infrastructure.

Check if the two clinics, could help TB patients may benefit from shorter treatment, a researcher at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center report that this measure does not work in a study published online American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Both measures were the absence of a cave (an abscess by TB) in the lungs (breast, X-Ray) and bacteria do not develop tuberculosis in the sputum processing was once (sputum culture conversion). The phase III study, patients with TB in Uganda (Africa), Brazil (South America) and the Philippines (Asia) and tuberculosis has been Research Unit (TBRU) at Case Western Reserve University and UH Case Medical Center in Cleveland, the only National Institutes of Health in charge of tuberculosis in the United States

"We found that the combination of these two non-clinical measures for TB patients, could benefit from shorter treatment. TB patients, four months, the treatment of TB disease of the new much more frequently than those who have six months, drug treatment, "said Henry W. Boom, MD, a disease experts from Case Western Reserve University and UH Case Medical Center and director of TBRU. "This study highlights the limitations of current clinical measures to ensure the relatively small group of patients with TB, the harm by failing to meet medical treatment."

"For a better identification of risk factors for treatment, why not in a part of the TB patient requires new approaches and the future of research, so we quickly found that (do not wait up to two years after the end of six months after drug treatment for recurrence), not only the effectiveness of new TB drugs or studying, but also that the greatest advantage of these shortcuts and simplify TB treatment, "said John L. Johnson, MD, first author of the study and a disease expert Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and UH Case Medical Center.