• Lorenzo Guglielmetti, Uzma Khan, Gustavo E Velásquez, Maelenn Gouillou, Amanzhan Abubakirov, Elisabeth Baudin, Elmira Berikova, Catherine Berry, Maryline Bonnet, Matteo Cellamare, Vijay Chavan, Vivian Cox, Zhanna Dakenova, Bouke Catherine de Jong, Gabriella Ferlazzo, Aydarkhan Karabayev, Ohanna Kirakosyan, Nana Kiria, Mikanda Kunda, Nathalie Lachenal, Leonid Lecca, Helen McIlleron, Ilaria Motta, Sergio Mucching Toscano, Hebah Mushtaque, Payam Nahid, Lawrence Oyewusi, Samiran Panda, Sandip Patil, PhillipsPatrick P JPPJFrom Médecins Sans Frontières (L.G., F.V.), Sorbonne Université, INSERM Unité 1135, Centre d'Immunologie et des Maladies Infectieuses (L.G.), Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, Groupe Hospitalier Universitaire Sorbonne Université, Jimena Ruiz, Naseem Salahuddin, Epifanio Sanchez Garavito, Kwonjune J Seung, Eduardo Ticona, Lorenzo Trippa, Dante E Vargas Vasquez, Sean Wasserman, Michael L Rich, Francis Varaine, Carole D Mitnick, and endTB Clinical Trial Team.
• From Médecins Sans Frontières (L.G., F.V.), Sorbonne Université, INSERM Unité 1135, Centre d'Immunologie et des Maladies Infectieuses (L.G.), Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, Groupe Hospitalier Universitaire Sorbonne Université, Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, Centre National de Référence des Mycobactéries et de la Résistance des Mycobactéries aux Antituberculeux (L.G.), and Epicentre (M.G., E. Baudin), Paris, and Translational Research on HIV and Endemic and Emerging Infectious Diseases, Montpellier Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Montpellier, INSERM, Montpellier (M.B.) - all in France; Interactive Development and Research, Singapore (U.K.); McGill University, Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, Montreal (U.K.); UCSF Center for Tuberculosis (G.E.V., P.N., P.P.J.P.) and the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine (G.E.V.), University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco; the National Scientific Center of Phthisiopulmonology (A.A., E. Berikova) and the Center of Phthisiopulmonology of Almaty Health Department (A.K.), Almaty, and the City Center of Phthisiopulmonology, Astana (Z.D.) - all in Kazakhstan; Médecins Sans Frontières (C.B., I.M.), the Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit at University College London (I.M.), and St. George's University of London Institute for Infection and Immunity (S.W.) - all in London; MedStar Health Research Institute, Washington, DC (M.C.); Médecins Sans Frontières, Mumbai (V. Chavan), the Indian Council of Medical Research Headquarters-New Delhi, New Delhi (S. Panda), and the Indian Council of Medical Research-National AIDS Research Institute, Pune (S. Patil) - all in India; the Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Research (V. Cox) and the Department of Medicine (H. McIlleron), University of Cape Town, and the Wellcome Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in Africa, Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (S.W.) - both in Cape Town, South Africa; the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium (B. C. J.); Médecins Sans Frontières, Geneva (G.F., N.L.); Médecins Sans Frontières, Yerevan, Armenia (O.K.); the National Center for Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases, Tbilisi, Georgia (N.K.); Partners In Health (M.K.) and Jhpiego Lesotho (L.O.) - both in Maseru; Socios En Salud Sucursal Peru (L.L., S.M.-T., J.R., E.S.-G., D.E.V.-V.), Hospital Nacional Sergio E. Bernales, Centro de Investigacion en Enfermedades Neumologicas (E.S.-G.), Hospital Nacional Dos de Mayo (E.T.), Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (E.T.), and Hospital Nacional Hipólito Unanue (D.E.V.-V.) - all in Lima; Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School (L.L., K.J.S., M.L.R., C.D.M.), Partners In Health (L.L., K.J.S., M.L.R., C.D.M.), the Division of Global Health Equity, Brigham and Women's Hospital (K.J.S., M.L.R., C.D.M.), the Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, (L.T.), and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (L.T.) - all in Boston; and the Indus Hospital and Health Network, Karachi, Pakistan (H. Mushtaque, N.S.).
• N. Engl. J. Med. 2025 Jan 30; 392 (5): 468482468-482.

BackgroundFor decades, poor treatment options and low-quality evidence plagued care for patients with rifampin-resistant tuberculosis. The advent of new drugs to treat tuberculosis and enhanced funding now permit randomized, controlled trials of shortened-duration, all-oral treatments for rifampin-resistant tuberculosis.MethodsWe conducted a phase 3, multinational, open-label, randomized, controlled noninferiority trial to compare standard therapy for treatment of fluoroquinolone-susceptible, rifampin-resistant tuberculosis with five 9-month oral regimens that included various combinations of bedaquiline (B), delamanid (D), linezolid (L), levofloxacin (Lfx) or moxifloxacin (M), clofazimine (C), and pyrazinamide (Z). Participants were randomly assigned (with the use of Bayesian response-adaptive randomization) to receive one of five combinations or standard therapy. The primary end point was a favorable outcome at week 73, defined by two negative sputum culture results or favorable bacteriologic, clinical, and radiologic evolution. The noninferiority margin was -12 percentage points.ResultsAmong the 754 participants who underwent randomization, 699 were included in the modified intention-to-treat analysis, and 562 in the per-protocol analysis. In the modified intention-to-treat analysis, 80.7% of the patients in the standard-therapy group had favorable outcomes. The risk difference between standard therapy and each of the four new regimens that were found to be noninferior in the modified intention-to-treat population was as follows: BCLLfxZ, 9.8 percentage points (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.9 to 18.7); BLMZ, 8.3 percentage points (95% CI, -0.8 to 17.4); BDLLfxZ, 4.6 percentage points (95% CI, -4.9 to 14.1); and DCMZ, 2.5 percentage points (95% CI, -7.5 to 12.5). Differences were similar in the per-protocol population, with the exception of DCMZ, which was not noninferior in that population. The proportion of participants with grade 3 or higher adverse events was similar across the regimens. Grade 3 or higher hepatotoxic events occurred in 11.7% of participants overall and in 7.1% of those receiving standard therapy.ConclusionsConsistent results across all the analyses support the noninferior efficacy of three all-oral shortened regimens for the treatment of rifampin-resistant tuberculosis. (Funded by Unitaid and others; endTB ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02754765.).Copyright © 2025 Massachusetts Medical Society.

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