Antitubercular Agents

Clinical implications of molecular drug resistance testing for Mycobacterium tuberculosis: a 2023 TBnet/RESIST-TB consensus statement

Drug-resistant tuberculosis is a substantial health-care concern worldwide. Despite culture-based methods being considered the gold standard for drug susceptibility testing, molecular methods provide rapid information about the Mycobacterium …

Availability and costs of medicines for the treatment of tuberculosis in Europe

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the access to comprehensive diagnostics and novel antituberculosis medicines in European countries. METHODS: We investigated the access to genotypic and phenotypic Mycobacterium tuberculosis drug susceptibility testing and the …

Rifapentine access in Europe: growing concerns over key tuberculosis treatment component

More on Treatment Outcomes in Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis

Beyond multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Europe: a TBNET study

The emergence of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) is a challenge to TB control in Europe. We evaluated second-line drug susceptibility testing in Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from patients with multidrug-resistant, pre-extensively …

Availability, price and affordability of anti-tuberculosis drugs in Europe: a TBNET survey

Data on availability and cost of anti-tuberculosis (TB) drugs in relation to affordability at national level are scarce. We performed a cross-sectional study on availability and cost of anti-TB drugs at major TB-reference centres in 37 European …

Multidrug resistance among new tuberculosis cases: detecting local variation through lot quality-assurance sampling

BACKGROUND: Current methodology for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) surveys endorsed by the World Health Organization provides estimates of MDR TB prevalence among new cases at the national level. On the aggregate, local variation in the …

Adherence to tuberculosis therapy among patients receiving home-based directly observed treatment: evidence from the United Republic of Tanzania

BACKGROUND: Non-adherence to tuberculosis (TB) treatment is the leading contributor to the selection of drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and subsequent treatment failure. Tanzania introduced a TB Patient Centred Treatment (PCT) …

The effect of tuberculosis and antiretroviral treatment on CD4+ cell count response in HIV-positive tuberculosis patients in Mozambique

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis (TB) presents a serious problem in Mozambique. HIV prevalence among TB patients is estimated at 47%. A delay in having their first CD4+ cell count could lead to a missed opportunity for ART initiation due to a CD4+ cell …

Evaluation of the Genotype® MTBDRplus assay as a tool for drug resistance surveys

SETTING A national tuberculosis (TB) drug resistance survey in Tanzania. OBJECTIVE To compare the performance of the Genotype® MTBDRplus line-probe assay (LPA) on smear-positive sputum specimens with conventional culture and isoniazid (INH) plus …