Pharmacokinetics of Rifabutin Combined With Antiretroviral Therapy in Patients With TB/HIV Co-infection in South Africa

The overall aim of the project is to evaluate rifabutin (RBT) as a replacement for rifampicin (RMP), for the combined treatment of tuberculosis and HIV infection. RBT represents an alternative to RMP for HIV infected patients as its half-life is longer and the enzymatic induction effect appears to be less important on the associated antiretroviral therapy (ART) drugs.

This phase II trial is to determine precisely the pharmacokinetics parameters of RBT in combination with different ART regimens in Vietnamese HIV infected patients with pulmonary tuberculosis, in order to define optimal doses that will be further tested in a larger phase III trial comparing safety, tolerability and efficacy of RBT and RMP regimens.

Patients will be offered to participated in the study after the first 6 weeks of the nationally recommended TB treatment. All the enrolled patients will be switched to rifabutin and randomized, two weeks later, to one of the three study ARV regimens. The RBT doses will be then adapted to the allocated ARV regimen according to a cross over scheme. Three full pharmacokinetics profile will be performed at different time point : before initiation of ARV, after one month of the first RFB dosage and one month after the second RFB dosage.