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Study says new drug combo could cut TB treatment time

Infection Control Monitor, September 21, 2007

Substituting a new antibiotic in the standard mix of drugs physicians use to treat tuberculosis (TB) could cut at least two months off the current six-month medication regime now prescribed for the contagious disease.

By adding the antibiotic moxifloxacin (sold under the brand name Avelox), for an older drug, ethambutol, U.S. researchers saw a 17% increase in effectivness, according to news reports. Richard Chaisson, MD, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, presented the findings at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in Chicago this week.

"Our finding shows that moxifloxacin is potent against tuberculosis," Chaisson told Reuters news agency "It shows very dramatically that people get better faster."

Shortening treatment time could help patients stick to the prescribed therapy and reduce the development of drug resistant strains of TB that are more dangerous and more difficult to treat. The eight-week study, which was funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, tested 170 men and women with TB in Brazil. After two months, cultured sputum samples from those patients who took the mixture of drugs that included moxifloxacin were far less likely to grow TB. Researchers will now study their findings in a larger clinical trial.

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