A Weekly Drug Regimen for TB?

Currently, TB therapy involves four or more drugs taken daily for the first 2 months, then at least three times weekly until completion of treatment. Therapy would be simplified if medication could be taken once weekly, but rifapentine has been the only drug with a half-life sufficient to allow this change, and at least two active agents must be used to prevent the emergence of resistance. Now, in a study partially funded by industry, researchers in Belgium have used a mouse model to study the bactericidal activity of the diarylquinoline R207910, given once weekly, alone and in combination with other antituberculous drugs.

Mice were intravenously infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), and therapy was initiated 2 weeks later. After 2…