Tradeoffs in Introduction Policies for the Anti-Tuberculosis Drug Bedaquiline: A Model-Based Analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

New drugs for the treatment of tuberculosis (TB) are becoming available for the first time in over 40 y. Optimal strategies for introducing these drugs have not yet been established. The objective of this study was to compare different strategies for introducing the new TB drug bedaquiline based on patients' resistance patterns.

Methods and findings

We created a Markov decision model to follow a hypothetical cohort of multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB patients under different bedaquiline use strategies. The explored strategies included making bedaquiline available to all patients with MDR TB, restricting bedaquiline usage to patients with MDR plus additional resistance and withholding bedaquiline introduction completely. We compared these strategies according to life e

SUBMITTER: Kunkel A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5058480 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature