Background: The impact of COVID-19 on the diagnosis and management of tuberculosis (TB) patients is unknown. Methods: Participating centres completed a structured web-based survey regarding changes to TB patient management during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also included data from participating centres on patients aged !18 diagnosed with TB in 2 periods: March 15 to June 30, 2020 and March 15 to June 30, 2019. Clinical variables and information about patient household contacts were retrospectively collected. Results: A total of 7 (70%) TB units reported changes in their usual TB team operations. Across both periods of study, 169 patients were diagnosed with active TB (90 in 2019, 79 in 2020). Patients diagnosed in 2020 showed more frequent bilateral lesions in chest X-ray than patients diagnosed in 2019 (P = 0.004). There was a higher percentage of latent TB infection and active TB among children in households of patients diagnosed in 2020, compared with 2019 (P = 0.001). Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused substantial changes in TB care. TB patients diagnosed during the COVID-19 pandemic showed more extended pulmonary forms. The increase in latent TB infection and active TB in children of patient households could reflect increased household transmission due to anti-COVID-19 measures.

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Multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB), resistant to isoniazid and rifampicin, continues to be one of the most important threats to controlling the TB epidemic. Over the last few years, there have been promising pharmacological advances in the paradigm of MDR TB treatment: new and repurposed drugs have shown excellent bactericidal and sterilizing activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis and several all-oral short regimens to treat MDR TB have shown promising results. The purpose of this comprehensive review is to summarize the most important drugs currently used to treat MDR TB, the recommended regimens to treat MDR TB, and we also summarize new insights into the treatment of patients with MDR TB.

Background The aim of our study is to describe the FDG-PET/CT findings in patients with tuberculosis and to correlate them with the patient’s prognosis. Methods We retrospectively collected data from patients with tuberculosis, who had an FDG-PET/CT performed prior to treatment initiation from 2010 to 2015. Results Forty-seven out of 504 patients with active tuberculosis diagnosis (9.33%) underwent an FDG-PET/CT. The reasons for performing the FDG-PET/CT were: characterization of a pulmonary nodule (24; 51.1%), study of fever of unknown origin (12; 25.5%), study of lymph node enlargement (5; 10.6%) and others (6; 12.8%). Median age was 64 (IQR 50–74) years and 31 (66%) patients were male. Twenty-six (55.3%) patients had an immunosuppressant condition. According to the FDG-PET/CT, 48.6% of the patients had more than 1 organ affected and 46.8% had lymph node involvement. Median SUVmax of the main lesion was 5 (IQR 0.28–11.85). We found an association between the FDG accumulation and the size of the main lesion with a correlation coefficient of 0.54 (p<0.002). Patients with an unsuccessful outcome had a higher ratio SUVmax main lesion / SUVmean liver (1.92 vs 7.67, p<0.02). Conclusions In our cohort, almost half of the patients had more than 1 organ affected and 46.8% of them had lymph node involvement. FDG uptake was associated with the size of the main lesion and seems to be related to the treatment outcome. The extent of its potential to be used as an early predictor of treatment success still needs to be defined.