TY - JOUR T1 - Linezolid, an effective, safe and cheap drug in MDR-TB treatment failure patients in India JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J DO - 10.1183/09031936.00076811 SP - erj00768-2011 AU - R. Singla AU - J.A. Caminero AU - A. Jaiswal AU - N. Singla AU - S. Gupta AU - R.K. Bali AU - D. Behera Y1 - 2011/01/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/early/2011/09/29/09031936.00076811.abstract N2 - Linezolid is identified as an effective drug to treat patients failing MDR-TB treatment. However, cost and safety are the concerns. In India the average price of a pill of 600 mg linezolid is less than one US$, much cheaper than most of the third line drugs.A prospective study of 29 MDR-TB treatment failure patients (sixteen had laboratory proven XDR-TB, and rest 13 had MDR-TB with resistance to any quinolone but sensitive to injectables) was carried out in Delhi, India. All patients received daily unsupervised therapy with linezolid, one injectable agent, one fluoroquinolone and two or more other drugs.Patients received a median of 6 anti-mycobacterial agents. Besides linezolid, capreomycin, moxifloxacin, levofloxacin and amoxy-clavulanic acid were used in 41.4%, 58.6%, 41.4%, and 79.3% of patients. Out of total 29 patients, 89.7% patients achieved sputum smear and culture conversion; 72.4% showed interim favorable outcome; 10.3% died, 6.8% failed and 10.3% patients defaulted. Linezolid had to be stopped in 3 (10.3%) patients due to adverse reactions. The outcome of treatment of 16 XDR-TB patients was comparable to the other 13.Linezolid is an effective, cheap and relatively safe drug for patients failing MDR-TB treatment, including those with confirmed XDR-TB. ER -