Chemotherapy for tuberculosis; yesterday, today, and tomorrow--basic and clinical studies

The discovery of streptomycin in 1944 had given rise to great flowering of chemotherapy for tuberculosis. The times which triple treatment of SM.PAS.INH after the temporal time of SM.PAS had been standard regimens on initial treatment had continued for more than twenty years. The shortening of duration for chemotherapy had become possible by the introduction of RFP, and the duration had reduced to one fourth compared with that of the regimens till then by the addition of PZA for two months at the beginning of treatment on the initial treatment cases. In this paper, historical aspects of early and present-day chemotherapy of tuberculosis and the reports of main studies have been summarized, and pharmacokinetics of INH, action of antituberculous drugs in short-course chemotherapy, MDR-TB and biological response modifiers for treatment of tuberculosis, etc. has been reviewed. It is urgently awaited that more new drugs without cross resistance to previous drugs will be developed for the more shortening of the duration and the improvement of the treatment for MDR-TB.