Europe may be having more success against multi-drug resistant TB than previously thought, according to British researchers.
The new analysis says cure rates of patients with the disease are nearly as twice as high as previous estimates.
Standard criteria suggest that 31% of patients in Europe are cured – but, according to the new analysis, 61% are cured.
The researchers reported their findings in the New England Journal of Medicine last night.
They have been working as part of the Tuberculosis Network Clinical Trials Group.
They say the problem with the official, World Health Organisation, definition of cure is that it needs three samples of sputum taken 30 days apart.
They found that many patients did not produce sputum after being cured – and so no sample could be tested.
Their new definition of cure is based on a sputum sample six months after initiation of therapy together with a patient being free from disease a year after ending treatment.
Their analysis involved some 380 patients at 23 sites across Europe over five years.
Researcher Dr Heinke Kunst said: “The results from our study are very encouraging and may give hope to patients who are affected by MDR-TB. But there is still much to do to improve treatment outcomes, as 30% of MDR-TB patients still cannot be cured in Europe.
“We need new drugs and shorter regimens which are more effective, less toxic and widely available in the European region. We are optimistic that outcomes can be improved with novel medicines and individually-tailored treatments, rather than programmatic one-for-all courses of therapy.”
Gunar Günther, Christoph Lange et al.Treatment Outcomes in Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis. New England Journal of Medicine 14 September 2016; doi: 10.1056/NEJMc1603274
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