Year: 2023
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: INTRODUCTION: Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) could improve TB treatment outcomes by avoiding drug toxicity or underdosing. In this study, we describe the patient burden in three TB centres in Romania and Ukraine with a TDM indication, as per the current guidelines, in order to estimate the feasibility of implementing TDM.METHODS: A retrospective multi-centre study was conducted at the Iasi Lung Hospital (Iasi, Romania), Bucharest Marius Nasta Institute (Bucharest, Romania) and Chernivtsi TB Centre (Chernivtsi, Ukraine) in adult hospitalised TB patients.RESULTS: A total of 927 participants were admitted, of whom 37.8% had at least one indication for TDM, the most frequent being slow response to TB treatment (202/345, 58.6%); 55.5% had at least one cavity present on chest X-ray. Patients with a TDM indication stayed in the hospital for a median of 67 days and took on average 2 months more to reach a successful TB outcome.CONCLUSION: TDM could be a valuable tool to improve management of selected TB patients. The decision on whether to perform TDM is often delayed by 2 months due to waiting for culture results after treatment initiation. A randomised control trial should be performed in order to define TDM’s precise role in TB therapy.
Institutions: University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Institutul de Pneumoftiziologie "Marius Nasta", Bukovinian State Medical University, "Ion Ionescu de la Brad" Iasi University of Life Sciences, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, The University of Sydney, Westmead Hospital
Language: English
Subfield: Infectious Diseases
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: European Commission
OpenAlex ID: W4387950469