ATLANTA - responsible of health Monday celebrated faster processing for people who have TB but are not infectious, after that the investigators have found that a new combination of pills hidden by the disease in three months instead of nine.
This means that more people are likely to complete their treatment for latent tuberculosis, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said.
"New ways to prevent simple disease are urgently needed and this breakthrough represents one of the major developments in the treatment of tuberculosis in recent decades," CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden, said in a prepared statement.
For decades, those infected by the TB bacteria, but not ill were treated with a special pill TB, isoniazid, taken once a day for nine months. It was the standard schema despite the problems for many to take the pill every day.
But in one of the most important federal trials to examine the preventive treatment of tuberculosis, investigators found that other regimen has been just as effective. Just once per week and for only three months, patients took a greater dose of isoniazid and also a dose of another antibiotic, rifapentine.
About 82 percent of the population in the three-month scheme completed the full treatment, while that only 69 per cent on the scheme of nine months made. More serious side effects are the same for the two schemes.
In addition, only seven cases of TB developed among people on the new treatment, compared to 15 in the standard group.
"It was effective enough," said Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, a professor at Columbia University of epidemiology and medicine who participated in the study.
The pattern of three months is also more expensive. Only drugs cost about $160 more than on the price of the rifapentine. Nine months of isoniazid costs less $ 6.
The costs of these two patterns grew when laboratory tests and other aspects of care are discarded, but ultimately, the pattern of three months by more than two times more expensive than the standard treatment.
The study was conducted by Dr. Timothy Sterling of Vanderbilt University and was presented Monday at the Conference International American Thoracic Society in Denver.
The CDC is working with consultants to examine the results of the study and draft new guidelines for the treatment of latent tuberculosis. The guidelines should be completed later this year, said the officials of the Agency.
Tuberculosis is caused by bacteria that spread from person to person through the air. Tuberculosis usually affects the lungs and can cause symptoms such as pain in the chest and coughing up blood. Globally, it kills approximately 1.7 million people each year.
Antibiotics and other measures, the rate of TB in the United States decreased for years. Last year, it hit more lower - a total of 11.181 cases of TB disease reported.
But, more than 11 million Americans have latent TB infection, which means that they are infected with TB bacteria, but have no symptoms and are not infectious.
About 5 to 10% of TB patients develop the disease if it is not treated, which means that they are a major obstacle to the Elimination of TB in the United States.
"The 11 million people with latent tuberculosis represent a bomb ticking." "They are the source of future cases of tuberculosis," said Dr. Kenneth Castro, Director of the Division of the CDC tuberculosis elimination.
Most of the Americans with latent tuberculosis do know that they are infected, but put to the test have been targeted to groups of people who tend to have higher rates of infection of TB or who are more vulnerable to TB infection gain access to disease. Approximately 300 000 to 400 000 Americans with latent tuberculosis are beginning treatment each year.
But many will stay with it, sometimes because they feel good and do not see the need to take a pill against a disease that they have not developed. Some don't like that they cannot drink alcohol while taking isoniazid.
The study focused on approximately 8,000 people with latent tuberculosis, in the United States Canada, the Brazil and Spain. They were followed for almost three years from the time wherever they started to study. Most of the best research of the United States TB centres participated.
Half received the standard treatment, a daily dose of 300 milligrams of isoniazid for 9 months, and they have their own. The other half were on a dose of 900 mg of rifapentine and isoniazid 900-milligram dose, but it has in front of a physician or other health worker.
Researchers have recognized that follow-up studies are needed to see if patients on the scheme of three months are also faithful to take their medications when they are not monitored.
In addition, is not known how the strategy would work in countries where tuberculosis is more common and the chances of reinfection are much higher, of health officials, said.
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