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Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a new antibiotic that, when combined with two existing antibiotics, can tackle the most formidable and deadly forms of tuberculosis. The trio of drugs treats extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), along with cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) that have proven unresponsive to other treatments.
Tuberculosis is the single leading infectious killer in the world, infecting an estimated 10 million people in 2017 and killing 1.6 million of them. XDR-TB and MDR-TB are even more savage forms of the disease, which is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The drug-resistant strains of TB kill an estimated 60% and 40% of their victims, respectively.
[...] The new three-drug regimen with the new FDA-approved antibiotic beats those figures handily, according to data from a small Phase III clinical trial. The regimen cleared the infection from 95 of 109 patients with XDR-TB or treatment-unresponsive MDR-TB in just six months. That's an 87% treatment success rate for six months of treatment. (Two patients not included in the 95 extended their treatment to nine months.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Monday August 19 2019, @05:13PM
Safety is relative. If other treatments have failed and you are facing an early death, a lot of drugs that would otherwise be out of the question start to make sense. A 50% chance of death is much safer than a 99% chance.