Treatment of multidrug-resistant pulmonary tuberculosis with delamanid based on Japanese guideline recommendations.

Background: In Japan, a new anti-tuberculous drug, delamanid, was recognized as the drug of choice to treat multi-drug resistant pulmonary tuberculosis in July 2014.

Methods: We treated 28 cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and three cases of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) with delamanid from July 2014 to June 2018 at our hospital.

Results: There were 21 men and 10 women, with the mean age of 48 and 37 years, respectively. We used an average of 4.4 sensitive anti-tuberculous drugs for the MDR-TB cases and 4.7 for the XDR-TB cases with delamanid. We used linezolid in 19 of 31 cases, although it has not been recognized as an anti-tuberculous drug in Japan. On electrocardiography, QTc prolongation of more than 450 ms was seen in two cases (6.4%), but they were asymptomatic, thus the treatment with delamanid could be continued. In 10 cases, surgical resection was performed. We completed the treatment in 20 cases and continued the treatment in seven cases; however, the treatment was discontinued in four cases because of side effects. In all cases, the sputum cultures were negative.

Conclusions: Delamanid is a relatively safe drug with few side effects. However, some patients could not continue it because of difficulty of use in combination, therefore delamanid should be prescribed considering the side effects of all therapies in the regimen.