Sydney researchers have found that Levofloxacin substantially reduces risk of drug-resistant tuberculosis. This discovery offers new hope against a disease that infects more than 400,000 people annually.
Antibiotic treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis found to be safe and effective in clinical trialshowed that the oral antibiotic levofloxacin taken once-daily for six months substantially reduced the risk of developing drug-resistant tuberculosis , and almost halved adults' and children's risk of developing multidrug-resistant TB.
The trial enrolled 2,041 family members of people with drug-resistant TB. These family members had early infection, which had not yet developed into the active form of drug-resistant TB. The study was conducted across 10 provinces in Vietnam, a country with a high rate of drug-resistant TB. "The VQUIN trial is a major step forward in the fight against drug-resistant TB."This evidence changes the way we care for people at risk of drug-resistant TB in Australia and globally. The benefits to the families and communities at risk of MDR TB is substantial," said Professor Fox, who is also research leader at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research.
TB remains one of the top causes of death in children globally and is one of the top killers of children below five years of age. An estimated 400,000 people develop MDR-TB disease each year, which is complex to treat with current medications that have many side effects. The treatment is very costly for both families and health services.
The teams from the VQUIN trial in Australia and TB CHAMP trial in South Africa collaborated before the trials were unblinded. They combined their data on efficacy and safety in traditional and novel Bayesian approaches. Jointly, they showed that across both trials, levofloxacin reduced the risk of developing TB by 60 percent.Novel Bayesian analysis showed similar results for each trial, individually.Trinh Duong, Joanna Brigden, H. Simon Schaaf, Frances Garden, Ben J.
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