Evolve

Description

Most patients diagnosed with drug-resistant TB started their therapy before a full drug susceptibility testing (DST) profile is available. A proportion of these patients may initially receive a suboptimal prescription which may be revised once the full DST is known. This entails both inappropriate drugs, and/or inappropriate drug dosage. This study will monitor the effects of such inappropriate therapy on the development of additional drug resistance that will jeopardize successful treatment.

For this we will study a cohort of patients with drug resistant TB from Moldova and Belarus, countries with a high frequency of drug resistance in TB patients.

We will compare the drug resistance profiles of patients who will start directly on appropriate therapy with those who start with inappropriate therapy. Results will be directly relevant for future treatment and monitoring guidelines.