Shorter TB regimens in the future
Tuberculosis bacteria in the focus of research.
PanACEA, the Pan-African Consortium for the Evaluation of Antituberculosis Antibiotics, presented the results of its most recent phase IIb study. The most exciting finding from the study is that high-dose rifampicin results in faster killing of TB bacilli during treatment, compared to the current standard treatment. Prof Michael Hoelscher, LMU Munich, is participating in the study with a DZIF Clinical Trial Unit.
Every year, around nine million people contract tuberculosis worldwide. Their treatment involves taking a combination of different drugs daily for 6 months. This can make adherence to treatment hard, and has substantial costs to the health system and patients. Scientists at the German Center for Infection Research are therefore looking for new drugs and drug combinations. For clinical trials they cooperate in this study with the PanACEA consortium.
PanACEA MAMS-TB-01 trail was set up to shorten the length of time treatment needs to be taken for. The trial enrolled 365 patients from 7 sites in Tanzania and South Africa. It used an innovative adaptive clinical trial design that allows several new regimens to be compared to the current standard. The standard WHO-recommended TB treatment regimen (2 months of daily ethambutol, isoniazid, rifampicin and pyrazinamid followed by 4 months of daily isoniazid and rifampicin) involves taking the drugs daily for 6 months.
The most exciting finding from the study is that high-dose rifampicin (35 mg/kg) results in faster killing of TB bacilli during treatment, compared to the current standard treatment (10 mg Rifampicin/kg).
DZIF scientist Michael Hoelscher, sponsor representative, looks upon it favorably: "We are pleased to have optimized one potential component of a future treatment-shortening regimen. This is, however, only the beginning of a series of phase I and II studies that will evaluate in a systematic manner at least 5 novel and improved TB drugs."
