Shortening Tuberculosis Treatment — A Strategic Retreat

Our current treatment regimen for tuberculosis, which goes by the somewhat ironic name of "directly observed therapy, short course," is anything but short. Patients are treated, generally on a daily basis, for 6 months, which necessitates an infrastructure to deliver and observe therapy. This logistic burden has led to a push for shorter treatments. Although many initial attempts failed, a recent study suggested that a newer regimen could lead to a similar probability of cure in 4 months.1 This is certainly an advantage, and yet the newer regimen, if widely used, would still require a similarly burdensome infrastructure. Can we . . .