Key News in Family Medicine March 26, 2019 (10 of 12)

Research conducted by the Centenary Institute in Sydney, Australia has uncovered a whole new target for the treatment of drug-resistant TB; Scientists have discovered that the TB bacteria is diverting platelets from the body's blood clotting system in order to weaken the immune system.

Tuberculosis is far from being eradicated in the world and still infects more than 1,400 people a year in Australia. Antibiotic-resistant TB is particularly deadly and expensive to treat; it costs up to $ 250,000 to treat a single case in Australia. Scientists at the Centenary Institute have been working on new methods of treating tuberculosis by increasing the effectiveness of the immune system.

Using the zebrafish TB model, researchers used fluorescence microscopy to observe clot formation and platelet activation around sites of infection. Dr. Stefan Oehlers, senior author and director of the Centenarian Immunovascular Interactions Laboratory, said, "Zebrafish give us a literal overview of pathological processes by observing interacting cells in real time".

After having the impression that these platelets were trapped by the infection to prevent the immune system from getting organized, the researchers treated the infections with antiplatelet drugs, including aspirin, and were able to prevent diversion and allow the body to better control the infection. .

Elinor Hortle, lead author of the paper published in The infectious diseases journaland head of research at Centenary's Immune and Vascular Interactions Lab, explains, "This is the first time that platelets have made TB worse in an animal model. This suggests the possibility of using antiplatelet drugs to help the immune system fight the immune system. drug-resistant tuberculosis ".

More than 1.2 million Australians have latent TB, a form of non-infectious TB that puts them at risk of developing active disease. "Our study provides more crucial evidence that widely available aspirin could be used to treat patients with severe TB infection and save lives," said Dr. Hortle.