Old Drugs Might Give TB a 1-2 Punch, CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update 03/03/2009UNITED STATES: "Study: Old Drugs Might Give TB a 1-2 Punch" Associated Press (02.26.09)::Lauran Neergaard A fresh approach to TB treatment using two old, safe antibiotics could fight even the deadliest strains of the bacteria, extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), a new report suggests. TB bacteria contain an enzyme, beta-lactamase, that disables the penicillin class of antibiotics. "It chews them up and spits them out and they never get to see their target," said John Blanchard of the Albert Einstein School of Medicine. However, other antibiotics can block beta-lactamase, and Blanchard team tried using this enzyme-blocking property to flank TB, hoping to open it up to a wider spectrum of antibiotic treatment. Researchers specifically tapped the antibiotic clavulanate, part of the two-drug Augmentin antibiotic widely used for various infections of children, to inhibit the TB enzyme. In the laboratory, clavulanate opened TB up to meropenem, an antibiotic in the same class as penicillin, and the combination blocked the growth of 13 different XDR-TB strains. Whether the combination would work in human trials soon may be answerable. US researchers from the National Institutes of Health and New York Montefiore Medical Center are planning small patient studies in South Korea and South Africa, which they hope to begin later this year. "It is very clever," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The 1-2 treatment punch "leaves the original drug with the capability of doing what it is supposed to do." The full report, "Meropenem-Clavulanate Is Effective Against Extensively Drug-Resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis," was published in Science (2009;323(5918):1215-1218). Posted by : chpantip , E-mail : (chpantip@medicine.psu.ac.th) , Date : 2009-03-04 , Time : 08:10:19 , From IP : 172.29.3.68 |
