New latent TB therapy a 'game-changer'

ATLANTA, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta is recommending a new 12-dose regimen for preventive therapy to treat latent tuberculosis.

The recommendations, published Thursday in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, provide guidance on how to administer a new regimen for TB preventive therapy that significantly shortens and simplifies the course of treatment to 12 weeks from about nine months. The recommendations are based on the results of three clinical trials, as well as expert opinion, the report said.

The largest of the clinical trials, first announced in May and published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that a once-weekly regimen of the anti-TB drugs rifapentine and isoniazid, taken over a period of three months, was as effective in preventing TB disease as the standard self-administered nine-month daily regimen of isoniazid alone.

"This regimen has the potential to be a game-changer in the United States when it comes to fighting TB," Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the CDC, said in a statement. "It gives us a new, effective option that will reduce by two-thirds -- from nine months to three months -- the length of time someone needs to take medicine to prevent latent TB infection from progressing to active TB disease."

Latent TB infection occurs when a person has TB bacteria but does not have symptoms and cannot transmit the bacteria to others -- but will develop TB if the bacteria become active.