Antibiotic Could Shorten TB Treatment Duration, Study Says

The antibiotic moxifloxacin reduced tuberculosis treatment duration from about six months to eight weeks for 80% of patients, according to a study published Friday in the journal Lancet, Bloomberg reports. The drug, sold by Bayer under the brand name Avelox, already is used to treat pneumonia. According to Bloomberg, the study results could help improve TB treatment rates, increase treatment adherence and curb the spread of drug-resistant TB. FDA's Office of Orphan Products Development and NIH provided funding for the study.

For the study, Richard Chaisson of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Center for TB Research Laboratory and colleagues administered treatment regimens to 170 TB patients at a hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Of the patients who received Avelox along with standard care, 80% had no detectable TB levels in their saliva after eight weeks, compared with 63% of patients who received an older medication along with traditional combination treatments. According to Bloomberg, uncomplicated TB cases typically require six months of treatment. However, people with uncomplicated TB often do not complete the entire treatment course, which can contribute to the development of drug resistance. Therefore, reducing TB treatment duration could "substantially improve outcomes," the researchers said. They added that additional drug trials already are under way to determine whether physicians can shorten treatment duration without reducing efficacy.

In an accompanying commentary piece, Hans Rieder of the International Union Against TB and Lung Disease said the benefit of administering moxifloxacin is "surprisingly large." However, he added that "it remains to be seen" whether newer antibiotics such as Avelox will effectively shorten treatment duration. Rieder wrote, "What is needed, and is perhaps in reach, is a regimen that is well tolerated, of reasonably short duration, without an unacceptably high frequency of adverse drug effects, and thus an effective treatment" (Cortez, Bloomberg, 4/3).

An abstract of the study is available online. An abstract of the accompanying commentary also is available online.