The recent Union World Conference on Lung Health held in Copenhagen (Denmark) was full of fascinating findings. From new drug studies to a mask for diagnosing TB, the conference had a lot of them. Spotlight summarizes six notable studies. 1. The people do better if all TB prevention tablets are given at once.Researchers found that giving all the pills for a three-month course in TB preventive treatment (TPT) all at once was more effective than asking patients to collect the pills from the clinic every couple of weeks.“Multi-month delivery of TPT is safe and person-friendly. Approaches improving the convenience of TPT should be adopted to decompress health facilities and improve TPT coverage to meet TB prevention goals,” Adrienne Shapiro is an assistant professor of global and infectious diseases, University of Washington. 2. A new medicine might help shorten TB treatmentOne of the big talking points at this year’s conference was data on an experimental new drug called sorfequiline. Sorfequiline is believed to be a possible replacement for bedaquiline – arguably the most significant TB drug of recent decades. It is believed that sorfequiline could replace bedaquiline because it seems to be more powerful than the drug and due to concerns over TB strains which are resistant to bedaquiline. When people are sick with TB, comorbidities play a big role. The more comorbidities someone has, the greater their chance of dying. The risk of death was 19% for those with three or more comorbidities, compared to 16 % if there were only two and 11 % if none. HIV and undernutrition are two of the most important factors in TB-related mortality. Around one-fifth of TB deaths among people younger than 40 years old are caused by undernutrition. Testing at the point of care can help people start treatment more quickly. Details about how TB services will be delivered can have a big impact on TB outcomes. Researchers from the University of Cape Town conducted a study to see if it mattered if a TB sample was collected at a mobile van, or if it were sent directly to a laboratory. The study tested indirectly whether someone’s test results mattered if they received them immediately or waited a couple of days for a response. The portable TB test is showing promising signsTessa Mokozuki, an assistant professor at the University of California presented results of a…
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2025-12-04 12:16:10
