• Yanhua Song, Wei Shu, Yi Pei, Juan Du, Guihui Wu, Hua Wang, Fengling Mi, Fangchao Liu, Liping Ma, Li Xie, Zhongshun Kong, Xiaoguang Wu, Rongmei Liu, Hongmei Chen, Hua Li, Qiping Ge, Lihui Nie, Zizheng Lv, Xuerui Huang, Mingwu Li, Mingying Jiang, Xiaohong Chen, Qingshan Cai, Wei Chen, Yanmei Liu, Yanfang Miao, Yan Tang, Yu Chen, Shujun Geng, Quanying Zhou, Yuhong Liu, Yu Pang, and Mengqiu Gao.
• Department of Tuberculosis, Beijing Chest Hospital, Capital Medical University/Beijing Tuberculosis and Thoracic Tumor Research Institute, Beijing, China.
• Bmc Med. 2024 Sep 19; 22 (1): 401401.

BackgroundWe concurrently developed a prospective study to assess clinical outcomes among patients receiving 9-month bedaquiline (BDQ)-containing regimens, aiming to provide valuable data on the use of this short-course regimen in China.MethodsThis open-label, randomized, controlled, multicenter, non-inferiority trial was conducted at sixteen hospitals, and enrolled participants aged 18 years and older with pulmonary rifampicin/multidrug tuberculosis. Participants were randomly assigned, in a 1:1 ratio. Individuals within the standard-regimen group received 6 months of BDQ, linezolid, levofloxacin, clofazimine, and cycloserine plus 12 months of levofloxacin, and any three potentially effective drugs from clofazimine, cycloserine pyrazinamide, ethambutol and protionamide, whereas individuals within shorter-regimen group received 9 months of BDQ, linezolid, levofloxacin, clofazimine and cycloserine. The primary outcome was the percentage of participants with a composite unfavorable outcome (treatment failure, death, treatment discontinuation, or loss to follow-up) by the end of the treatment course after randomization in the modified intention-to-treat population. The noninferiority margin was 10%. This trial was registered with www.chictr.org.cn , ChiCTR2000029012.ResultsBetween Jan 1, 2020, and Dec 31, 2023, 264 were screened and randomly assigned, 132 of 264 participants were assigned to the standard-regimen group and 132 were assigned to the shorter-regimen. Thirty-three (12.55%) of 264 participants were excluded from the modified intention-to-treat analysis. As a result, 231 participants were included in the modified intention-to-treat analysis (116 in the standard-regimen group and 115 in the shorter-regimen group).In the modified intention-to-treat population, unfavorable outcomes were reported in 19 (16.5%) of 115 participants for whom the outcome was assessable in the shorter-regimen group and 26 (22.4%) of 116 participants in the standard care group (risk difference 5.9 percentage points (97.5% CI - 5.8 to 17.5)). One death was reported in the standard-regimen group. The incidence of QTcF prolongation in the shorter-regimen group (22.6%, 26/115) was similar to the standard-regimen group (24.1%, 28/116).ConclusionsThe 9-month, all-oral regimen is safe and efficacious for the treatment of pulmonary rifampicin/multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. The high incidence of QTc prolongation associated with the use of BDQ highlights the urgent need of routine electrocardiogram monitoring under treatment with BDQ-containing regimens in the Chinese population.© 2024. The Author(s).

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