TB Trials Consortium gaining momentum
Two new studies in the works, others planned
More than four years after the first contracts were awarded for conducting TB treatment and prevention studies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's TB Trials Consortium has organized formally and is on track for designing two study protocols, with others to follow.
Set up initially to conduct U.S. Public Health Service Study 22, the rifapentine clinical trial, the consortium now has 29 clinical sites across the country and recently elected officers and established bylaws, says Rick O'Brien, MD, chief of the Research and Evaluation Branch of the CDC's Division of TB Elimination.
"Now that we have become formally organized, we are hoping to become more active," O'Brien tells TB Monitor. "We have realized that our investigators and study coordinators had a lot of interest in doing more than just this one study and that they had a lot they could contribute in terms of ideas and additional work."
At its third national meeting, held prior to the American Thoracic Society conference in Chicago this spring, the TBTC discussed and developed protocols for small trials of patient who are ineligible for Study 22. One trial would study rifabutin treatment in HIV-positive TB patients.
The second study would be a short-course trial studying intermittent therapy in patients who are resistant or intolerant to isoniazid. The consortium also discussed the possibility of a study of new rifapentine regimens either as treatment or preventive therapy.
The TB Trials Consortium comprises clinical investigators from academic medical centers, health departments, and Veterans Affairs medical centers who work closely with the CDC. At the Chicago meeting, members were elected to five committees.
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