I has the largest TB epidemic in the world with almost 1000 TB related deaths everyday or 2 deaths every 3 minutes. Drug resistance is assuming increasing proportions with the prevalence of multi drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (defined as TB resistant to at least both isoniazid (H) and rifampicin (R)) approaching 1.5-2.7% in new and 13-17% in previously treated cases.1 The exact burden of ex...

Continuous deployment of antitubercular drugs in treating Tuberculosis (TB) caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) has led to the emergence of drug resistance resulting in cross-resistance to many unrelated drugs, a phenomenon termed as Multi-Drug Resistance (MDR-TB). Despite reasonable documentation of major factors which contribute to MDR mechanisms, it appears unavoidable to consider nov...

The emergence of infections caused by multi-drug resistant (MDR) pathogens pose a major burden to modern healthcare. Exacerbating this issue is the substantial decline in development of new classes of antibiotics by pharmaceutical companies. This has led to renewed interest in the therapeutic potential of natural anti-infective agents such as host defense peptides (HDPs). The broad antimicrobia...

BACKGROUND Although high antituberculosis (anti-TB) drug resistance rates have been reported in Turkey, the clinical characteristics and implications for the outcome of anti-TB treatment have not been fully investigated. We determined the prevalence of anti-TB drug resistance and examined demographic data, clinical characteristics and treatment outcome in relation to patterns of resistance. M...

Background: India is a high burden country for Tuberculosis (TB). As per the World Health Organization (WHO) statistics, 24000 cases of Multi Drug Resistant (MDR) TB were diagnosed in India in 2014. MDR-TB patients consist of a heterogeneous cohort and management has its challenges. Aims and objectives: We studied the prevalence of PreExtensively Drug Resistant TB (Pre XDR-TB) and Extensively D...

BACKGROUND The use of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy in treating osteosarcoma has improved patients' average 5 year survival rate from 20% to 70% in the past 30 years. However, for patients who progress after chemotherapy, its effectiveness diminishes due to the emergence of multi-drug resistance (MDR) after prolonged therapy. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS In order to overcome both the dose-limit...

In this study, we investigated the mechanism by which tomentodione M (TTM), a novel natural syncarpic acid-conjugated monoterpene, reversed multi-drug resistance (MDR) in cancer cells. TTM increased the cytotoxicity of chemotherapeutic drugs such as docetaxel and doxorubicin in MCF-7/MDR and K562/MDR cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner. TTM reduced colony formation and enhanced apoptosis...

BACKGROUND The emergence of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) hampers TB control. Ten provinces in China performed drug resistance surveys among tuberculosis (TB) patients in 1996-2004 to assess levels of drug resistance. METHODS Provincial drug resistance surveys included all isolates from newly diagnosed, smear-positive TB patients. Drug susceptibility testing (DST) against isoniazid, rifamp...

Multi-drug resistance (MDR) of cancer cells severely limits therapeutic outcomes. A proposed mechanism for MDR involves the efflux of anti-cancer drugs from cancer cells, primarily mediated by ATP-binding cassette (ABC) membrane transporters including P-glycoprotein. This article reviews the recent progress of using active ingredients, extracts and formulae from Chinese medicine (CM) in circumv...