Final treatment outcomes of delamanid-containing regimens in patients with MDR-/XDR-TB in South Korea

A phase III trial of delamanid showed acceptable safety and tolerability; however, it failed to demonstrate superior efficacy of delamanid in terms of reduction in time to sputum conversion and improvement in final treatment outcomes compared with placebo [1]. How to interpret these results and identify the role of delamanid in multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) treatment is challenging [2]. Despite the disappointing results, this trial suggests that more studies are needed to better understand the role of delamanid in the current management of MDR-TB. So far, there have been several reports of real-world data on the interim outcomes of delamanid treatment [3–6], but few on its final outcomes [7]. The optimised use of delamanid combined with effective repurposed drugs could achieve a high treatment success rate, even in pre-extensively drug-resistant (XDR)-TB and XDR-TB patients http://bit.ly/2plvEOT