Study finds more research is needed for the use of newer drugs,
a greater number of effective drugs, and a longer treatment
regimen to improve survival of patients with multidrug resistant
tuberculosis. This large study by a team of international
researchers is published in this week's PLOS Medicine Global
efforts to control tuberculosis are being challenged by the
emergence of strains that are resistant to several antibiotics
including isoniazid and rifampicin, the two most powerful,
first-line (standard) anti-tuberculosis drugsso-called multidrug
resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). The treatment of MDR-TB is
lengthy, toxic, expensive, and has mostly resulted in poor
outcomes for patients. Importantly, the optimal treatment
regimens for MDR-TB have not been determined and, to date, there
have been no randomized controlled trials of treatments for MDR-
TB. In this study, a large group of international researchers
(the Collaborative Group for Meta-Analysis of Individual Patient
Data in MDR-TB) combined data on out