The safety and immunogenicity of RUTI was established in healthy volunteers, patients with latent tuberculosis (TB); and Drug Susceptible (DS) -TB and Drug resistance (DR)-TB. This study proposed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the RUTI vaccine in patients with active pulmonary TB. Immunotherapy for TB could shorten the sputum culture conversion, therefore reduce the time required to cure. Therapeutic vaccines do not interfere directly with the causative organism and hence, they are not involved in the development of drug resistance. Therapeutic vaccination would also be beneficial for DS-TB as it could increase the response to the standard therapy and help diminish the development of drug resistance. The vaccination stimulates the immune response during the continuation phase of TB treatment in which the remaining bacteria are poorly sensitive, if not refractory, to antimycobacterial agents, and potentiate chemotherapy. Reducing the huge reservoir of mycobacterium tuberculosis (DS or not) by vaccination strategies could ultimately accelerate elimination of the disease worldwide.~As per the results of the Phase II clinical trial in patients with latent TB, the best polyantigenic response was obtained with a dose of 25µg of RUTI vaccine and the second inoculation did not further increase the response. Based on these findings, a single dose of 25µg of vaccine will be used in the study.~The objective of this study is to i) explore the efficacy as reduction of bacillary load through the study of early bactericidal activity (EBA) in patients with DS-TB; and ii) provide data from safety perspective of the vaccine RUTI (25 µg FCMtb) in patients with TB, when given concomitant with the standard of care treatment initiation.~The study will include patients diagnosed with pulmonary DS-TB, candidate to start treatment with standard-care TB drugs and without any disease that could compromise the assessment of the response to the vaccination, or increase the risk of adverse events. RUTI will be administered on the day of TB treatment start, EBA will be measured on days 2, 4, 7, 10, 12, and 14, and adverse events will be collected up to week 24. Other measurements will be performed to assess the sputum culture conversion (SCC), clinical, X-ray or laboratory worsening, improvement of clinical signs and symptoms, and health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL).
This study is proposed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the RUTI vaccine in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis. Therapeutic vaccination of RUTI would stimulate the immune response not only against growing bacteria, but also against bacteria in a latent state that are less sensitive to antibiotic treatments. Therapeutic vaccination in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis could improve the speed of recovery of patients without inducing the appearance of drug resistance.