Bedaquiline: Current status and future perspectives

The development of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) is a major threat worldwide. Based on World Health Organization (WHO) reports, it is estimated that more than 500 000 new cases of drug-resistant TB occur annually. In addition, there are alarming reports of increasing multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and the emergence of extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) from different countries of the world. Therefore, new options for TB therapy are required. Bedaquiline (BDQ), a novel anti-TB drug, has significant minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) both against drug-susceptible and drug-resistant TB. Moreover, BDQ was recently approved for therapy of MDR-TB. The current narrative review summarises the available data on BDQ resistance, describes its antimicrobial properties, and provides new perspectives on clinical use of this novel anti-TB agent. (c) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/).

Automated summary

The development of drug-resistant tuberculosis is a major global threat, with over 500,000 new cases annually. Bedaquiline is a novel anti-TB drug with significant inhibitory concentrations against drug-resistant TB, recently approved for the therapy of multidrug-resistant TB.