Researchers Investigate Treatment for Tuberculosis

Contact: Cindy Foster (505) 272-0260

June 17, 1997

UNM Researchers Investigate Treatment for Tuberculosis

The University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy and School of Medicine and the Albuquerque-based Lovelace Research Institutes are teaming up to investigate a new tuberculosis treatment using inhalers to deliver anti-tuberculosis drugs directly to the lungs.

Through a grant from National Heart/Lung/Blood Foundation, researchers from the three institutions are developing with a better way of administering antibiotics required for treating tuberculosis.

Worldwide, tuberculosis is the leading cause of death from infection. Some 7.5 new cases are diagnosed each year, according to World Health Organization, with some three million deaths attributed to the disease each year. It is a slow growing disease that strikes at the aged in nursing homes and at those, like AIDS patients, who already have a weakened immune system. Past treatments generally involved oral medication. But because patients must take medicine over an extended period of time, six months or more, it is not unusual for them to sometimes slip up and forget a dosage.

"Obviously, when someone is taking an antibiotic for that length of time, compliance becomes an issue since non-compliance can lead to antibiotic resistant TB. And, we don't have a large arsenal of drugs that are effective against the disease if a strain of TB becomes antibiotic resistant," said Richard Lyons, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor at the School of Medicine who has extensive research expertise in tuberculosis.

Timing is always an issue when taking an antibiotic since prematurely halting or haphazardly taking medication can provide infectious cells with the opportunity to grow resistant to treatment.

The system the three are developing uses inhalers to deliver a drug directly to the lungs through small-sized fatty carriers known as liposomes. Research has shown that compliance improves when a person uses an inhaler. It is easier to remember and use. The researchers are also investigating whether delivery of the drug directly to the lungs will improve effectiveness by prolonging the drug's half-life within the body.

Working on the project with Lyons are Jerry Born, Ph.D., professor of Pharmacy, who provides the needed chemistry expertise, and Yung Sung Cheng as director of aerosol science research at the Lovelace Institutes, who oversees a unique national research resource for inhalation research.