Tuberculosis remains a global emergency causing an estimated 1.5 million deaths annually. For several decades the major focus of tuberculosis treatment has been on antibiotic development targeting Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The lengthy tuberculosis treatment duration and poor treatment outcomes associated with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are of major concern. The sparse new tube...

Retreatment of tuberculosis involves the management of entities as diverse as relapse, failure, treatment after default, and poor patient adherence to the previous treatment. The emergence of conditions for selection of resistance (failure and partial abandonment) is a matter of great concern. The development of a retreatment regimen for tuberculosis requires consideration of certain basic prem...

The presence of heteroresistance was represented by 23% of 235 fluoroquinolone (FQ)-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates in Beijing, China, from 2008 to 2010. The main mechanism of FQ heteroresistance is due to the segregation of a single M. tuberculosis strain in patients; the majority of isolates with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis contained a mixture of bacterial subpopulations co...

Among 186 retrospectively evaluated patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, 33.9% were cured, 6.6% completed treatment, 25% died, 18.3% were lost to follow-up, 2.2% failed treatment, and 13.8% were still undergoing treatment by the end of the study period. Rural residence was a risk factor for loss to follow-up (odds ratio [OR], 3.315; P = .016), whereas baseline body weight <40 kg (OR,...

We conducted a case-control study to investigate risk factors for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) in the People's Republic of China. Genotyping analysis was used to estimate the percentage of cases from recent transmission among 100 MDR TB case-patients hospitalized during April 2007-July 2009. Molecular subtyping of isolates showed that 41% of MDR TB strains clustered. Beijing genoty...

BACKGROUND Less than one-third of patients who are estimated to be infected with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) receive MDR-TB treatment regimens, and only 48% of those who received treatment have successful outcomes. Despite current regimens, newer, more effective and cost-effective approaches to treatment are needed. The aim of the study was to project health outcomes and impact on...

Linezolid (LZD) has become increasingly important for the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), but its mechanisms of resistance are not well characterized. We isolated 32 mutants ofMycobacterium tuberculosiswith reduced susceptibility to LZD, which was accounted for byrrlandrplCmutations in almost equal proportions, causing lower and higher MICs, respectively. Our findings pr...

The emergence of drug-resistant cancer cells is a major obstacle to cancer treatment. Resistant cells often display a multidrug-resistant phenotype that reduces the promise of combination chemotherapy, the classic approach to the prevention of drug resistance. mdr1, a member of the ABC cassette superfamily of transporters which encodes an energy-dependent drug efflux pump, is the only gene know...

Multidrug resistant organisms have been taunting the medical world for the last few decades. Even with new antibiotics developed, resistant strains have emerged soon after. With the advancement of nanotechnology, we investigated colloidal silver nanoparticles for its antimicrobial activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This organism is a multidrug resistant which contributes to the high morbi...

Multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria are an emerging problem. The present article addresses 2 relevant questions: (1) should active surveillance be performed to identify patients colonized with multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria, and (2) should contact isolation precautions be taken with patients colonized or infected with multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria? Data and varia...