Adverse Drug Reactions to Second-Line Drugs and Active Tuberculosis Drug Safety Monitoring and Management (aDSM)

Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis Workshop
ADVERSE DRUG REACTIONS TO SECOND-LINE DRUGS AND ACTIVE TUBERCULOSIS DRUG SAFETY MONITORING AND MANAGEMENT (aDSM)

Leow Wooi Leong
Kuala Lumpur Hospital, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Due to the nature of Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacterium, treatment of Tuberculosis (TB) requires the combination of several anti-TB agents. The treatment duration can range from as short as six months in drug-sensitive TB infection to as long as 20 months in rifampicin-resistant/ multidrug-resistant TB (RR/MDR-TB) infection. Due to the number of drugs and length of treatment duration, adverse drug reactions (ADRs) during TB treatment are common, and they significantly affect patient adherence to the treatment. 

Recent studies have shown that patients’ adherence to TB drugs strongly influences TB treatment outcomes. This highlights the importance of monitoring and managing the ADRs of TB drugs, especially second-line drugs, which are either new or repurposed drugs or have shown higher rates of toxicity. A review of the published ADRs of the current second-line anti-TB agents and how “Active Tuberculosis Drug Safety Monitoring and Management (aDSM)” can help improve TB treatment outcomes is presented.