Effectiveness and Safety of Shorter-Term Regimen (STR) for Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) Treatment: A Systematic Review of Cohort Studies
The multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) remains a significant public health burden in term of the successful TB treatment because of the lack awareness of TB drugs administration. Patients infected with MDR-TB are resistant to isoniazid (INH) and rifampicin (RMP) due to genotypic mutation, thus could not adequately treated by the first-line regimen standards. The management of MDR-TB using Short-Term Regimen (STR) is a crucial topic to be discussed due to low success rate of conventional therapy and its long duration. This systematic review aims to further examine the effectiveness and safety of STR to manage MDR-TB. In this systematic review, various cohort studies were searched using standardized Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyzes (PRISMA). The keywords were arranged based on Problem, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome (PICO). Key terms consisted of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and short regimen therapy. Seven cohort studies were selected from 314 studies. STR has better therapeutic efficacy and shorter duration than the 2011 WHO regimen for MDR-TB with therapy success rates for each study above 50%. The most effective regimen according to studies in this review is kanamycin-high dose isoniazid-clofazimine-ethambutol-prothionamide- pyrazinamidegatifloxacin (KM-INH-CFZ-EMB-PTH-PZA-GFX) in the intensive phase for 4 months and clofazimine-ethambutol-pyrazinamide-gatifloxacin-prothionamide (CFZ-EMBPZA-GFX-PTH) in the continuation phase for 8 months. The four most reported side effects were gastrointestinal problems, ototoxicity, dysglycemia, and liver problems. In conclusion, STR provides good effectiveness in MDR-TB treatment, in terms of treatment success rate and short therapy duration. Therapy with STR is relatively safe, with minimal side effects that can be tolerated in the majority of individuals.