This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

High-dose rifampin safe, appeared more effective

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

ATLANTA — Higher doses of rifampin — up to 35 mg/kg — were safe and resulted in higher activity compared with the current accepted dose used for tuberculosis, Martin Boeree, MD, PhD, of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center in the Netherlands, reported here.

“The dose of 10 mg/kg rifampin was arbitrarily chosen without a maximum tolerated dose study,” Boeree said at the 2013 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. “Murine and human data show that an increase in rifampin dose may significantly shorten treatment duration. Our study results show that the current accepted dose may be too low.”

Boeree and colleagues performed a 14-day study in adults with smear-positive TB. Consecutive groups of patients were assigned 7 days of rifampin at five different doses: 10 mg/kg, 20 mg/kg, 25 mg/kg, 30 mg/kg and 35 mg/kg. They then received the standard doses of isoniazid, pyrazinamide and ethambutol for the next 8 days. The researchers assessed the colony-forming units (CFU) of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and the time to culture positivity (TTP) on days 1 to 7, 12 and 14.

In the 10-mg/kg, 20-mg/kg, 25-mg/kg and 30-mg/kg groups, the fall in log CFU was 0.18 log CFU/mL per day, 0.15 log CFU/mL per day, 0.16 log CFU/mL per day and 0.25 log CFU/mL per day, respectively. In the 35-mg/kg group, the fall in log CFU was 0.25 log CFU/mL per day. The increases in log TTP were 0.02 log TTP per day, 0.03 log TTP per day, 0.03 log TTP per day and 0.04 log TTP per day in the 10-mg/kg, 20-mg/kg, 25-mg/kg and 30-mg/kg groups, respectively. In the 35-mg/kg group, the increase in log TTP was 0.04 log TTP per day.

For more information:

Boeree M. #148LB. Presented at: 2013 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections; March 3-6, 2013; Atlanta.

Disclosure: Boeree reports no relevant financial disclosures.