3-Month Treatment for Latent TB Infection as Effective as 9-Month Treatment

In patients with latent tuberculosis, a shorter treatment regimen may be as safe and effective as a longer course in preventing active disease, according to a CDC study presented on Monday at the American Thoracic Society conference.

Researchers studied some 8000 patients with latent TB who lived in countries with low to medium incidence of TB — mostly from the U.S. and Canada. Patients were randomized to either the standard treatment (9 months of self-administered daily isoniazid) or a shorter regimen (3 months of supervised weekly rifapentine and isoniazid). Over roughly 3 years' follow-up, seven patients on the shorter regimen developed TB disease, compared with 15 on standard treatment. The shortened-therapy group had a significantly higher rate of treatment completion (82% vs. 69%).

CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden called the findings "one of the biggest developments in TB treatment in decades." The CDC stresses that the results are only applicable to countries with low to moderate levels of latent infection