Will personalised medicine be the key to eradicating TB?

Abstract

Every year, 2 million people die from tuberculosis. Nearly one third of the world's population is already infected, and 10 % of this group will go on to develop TB. The two basic goals of TB treatment are the avoidance of resistance and the treatment of all bacilli populations. But the appearance of multiple drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively drug resistant TB (XDR-TB) strains is becoming an increasingly troublesome issue, and because treatments have to be prolonged, and enormous burden for health systems. From this perspective, personalised medicine can improve the treatment of patients with TB. By using genetic testing to detect specific polymorphisms and identify patients that best respond to the available drugs, and to consider therapeutic alternatives for those who are not. Further research for biomarkers will support personalised medicine in the treatment of infectious diseases, especially TB, where we are already confronted with the many limitations of the currently available treatments.

Keywords: personalised medicine ∙ multiple drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) ∙ extensively drug resistant TB (XDR-TB) ∙ directly observed therapy- short course (DOTS) ∙ SLCO1B1 gene polymorphism ∙ LTA4H gene polymorphisms