Treatment
With appropriate antibiotic treatment, TB can be cured in most people.
Successful treatment of TB depends on close cooperation between patient and healthcare provider. Treatment usually combines several different antibiotic drugs that are given for at least 6 months, sometimes for as long as 12 months.
Some people with TB do not get better with treatment because their disease is caused by a TB strain that is resistant to one or more of the standard TB drugs. If that happens, their healthcare providers will prescribe different drugs and increase the length of treatment.
The Importance of Finishing the TB Medicine
People who do not take all the required medicines can become sick again and spread TB to others. Additionally, when people do not take all the prescribed medicines or skip times when they are supposed to take them, the TB bacteria evolve to outwit the TB antibiotics. Soon those medicines no longer work against the disease. If this happens, the person now has drug-resistant TB.
Some people have disease that is resistant to two or more drugs. This is called multidrug-resistant TB or MDR TB. This form of TB is much more difficult to cure.
Treatment for MDR TB
Treatment for MDR TB often requires the use of special TB drugs, all of which can produce serious side effects. People with MDR TB may have to take several antibiotics, at least three to which the bacteria still respond, every day for up to 2 years. Even with this treatment, however, between four and six out of ten patients with MDR TB will die, which is the same rate seen with TB patients who are not treated.
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