Global Guidelines for Drug Resistant TB Released

The first global consensus on how to approach and treat outbreaks involving infections of multidrug-resistant and extensively drug resistant forms of the tuberculosis bacteria have been published, uniting physicians about this pressing issue for the first time.

Consensus statements were published online in the European Respiratory Journal (ERJ) on Monday. These statements represent the whole of what experts all over the globe have agreed on concerning how to approach and treat these new tuberculosis (TB) infections -- infections that can only be treated with experimental techniques and drugs, which remain inconclusively effective due to a lack of research on the subject.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which is currently escalating efforts to develop new and proven treatment for multidrug drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), estimated that 450,000 new cases of MDR-TB occur each year, with the risk of a full-blown international epidemic increasing annually.

Even as things stand, 16 underdeveloped countries have been identified by the WHO as the most at-risk regions to spur an epidemic of this dangerous TB strain. Experimental rapid and accurate testing units was deployed in one of these countries just week to help buy the world some more time to determine how to properly react to this growing threat, according to a recent report.

According to Professor Christophe Lange of the Respiratory Infections Assembly, a leading author of the consensus statement, it is the hope that the statement will serve guidelines for doctors around the world.

"We have harmonized individual expert opinions on the management of multidrug- and extensively drug-resistant TB in adults and children to ensure that consensus is available where clinical evidence is still lacking," Lang writes in the ERJ. "As clinicians we hope to improve the treatment of multidrug- and extensively drug-resistant TB and the life of our patients who suffer from these difficult-to-treat conditions."

The release of the consensus was initially announced in a press release on March 24, and can be made available for physicians in the European Respiratory Journal.