Title:Novel Adjunctive Therapies for the Treatment of Tuberculosis
Volume: 14
Issue: 3
Author(s): A.A. Ordonez, M. Maiga, S. Gupta, E.A. Weinstein, W.R. Bishai and S.K. Jain
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Corticosteroids, efflux pump inhibitors, microenvironment, inflammation, TNF-α.
Abstract: Despite significant efforts to control tuberculosis (TB), the disease remains a major global threat, with
an estimated 8.6 million new cases and 1.3 million deaths in 2012 alone. Significant treatment challenges include
HIV co-infection, the dramatic rise of multidrug-resistant TB and the vast reservoir of latently infected individuals,
who will develop active disease years after the initial infection. The long duration of chemotherapy also remains a
major barrier to effective large scale treatment of TB. Significant advances are being made in the development of
shorter and effective TB drug regimens and there is growing evidence that host-directed and “non-antimicrobial”
pathogen-directed therapies, could serve as novel approaches to enhance TB treatments. This review highlights
the rationale for using these therapies and summarizes some of the progress in this field.
