(August 25, 2008 - Insidermedicine) Tuberculosis that is extensively drug-resistant is not the untreatable condition it is widely regarded to be, according to research published in The Lancet.

Here are some facts about TB:

•    It is a bacterial infection that usually affects the lungs.

•    According to the WHO, one in three people worldwide are infected with dormant TB , but do not develop illness unless the the germ becomes active

•    While TB can often be treated with a six month course of antibiotics, an increasing number of strains are developing resistance to antibiotics.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School performed drug susceptibility tests on over 600 individuals who were known to have multidrug-resistant TB. They used these findings to design a treatment protocol in which the patients each received five drugs that testing indicated they would respond to or, if not possible, five drugs they had never taken in the past.

Overall, 5% of patients had extensively drug-resistant TB. They were more difficult to treat than the other patients, with nearly one-third failing treatment, compared with only 9% of those whose TB was not extensively drug-resistant. Still, nearly half had a positive response to their therapy.

Today's research demonstrates that extensively drug-resistant TB, which is widely regarded as untreatable, may respond to an extremely aggressive form of therapy.

For Insidermedicine in Depth, I'm Dr. Susan Sharma.