In a retrospective study of 174 tuberculosis patients treated at National Jewish Health (formerly National Jewish Medical and Research Center), patients with extensively-drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) were almost eight times as likely to die as patients with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
National Jewish Health is a national referral center for the treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis, and its physicians are recognized worldwide for their expertise in the treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis.
The study, published in the August 17, 2008, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, highlights the need for optimal management of multi-drug resistant cases to prevent the progression to XDR-TB, associated with poorer outcomes, including greater risk of death from tuberculosis.
"Over the years, we have become quite proficient at treating multi-drug resistant tuberculosis with initial treatment success rates greater than 90 percent in recent years," said lead author Michael Iseman, MD, Professor of Medicine at National Jewish. "Extensively drug-resistant cases, however, are much more difficult to treat and we still lose more of these patients than we save.
Drug-resistance has become a major problem in the treatment of tuberculosis, making the most effective and best tolerated medications ineffective for millions of patients around the world. Drug resistance arises when inadequate treatment kills most, but not all, of the tuberculosis organisms in a patient; the remaining organisms have often mutated to become resistant to various medications. While multi-drug resistance has been known for many years, XDR-TB was first recognized in March 2006.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080806184901.htm
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