Building Evidence for Advancing New Treatment For XDR/XDR-TB (BEAT TUBERCULOSIS) Study

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Investigator: Patrick Phillips, PhD, MS, MA

Location(s): South Africa

Description

BEAT stands for ‘Building Evidence for Advance Treatment against Tuberculosis’. The emergence of drug resistance is a major threat to tuberculosis (TB) care and control. Extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) is a form of TB caused by M. tuberculosis that are resistant to isoniazid and rifampicin (i.e. MDR-TB) as well as any fluoroquinolone and any of the second–line anti-TB injectable drugs.

The treatment of XDR-TB consists of 24-30 months of 7-8 drugs along with an injectable for 6-9 months, all drugs given on a daily basis. Considering the complexity of the treatment of pre-XDR and XDR-TB cases, there is an urgent need to build a better, safer, less toxic, shorter and cheaper regimen to reduce patient suffering and mortality with careful evaluation.