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ABSTRACT

Emerging multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is a major global health challenge. The World Health Organization currently recommends treatment durations of 9-18 months or more for patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. We identified and validated a host-RNA signature to serve as a biomarker for individualized therapy durations for patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. Adult patients with pulmonary tuberculosis were prospectively enrolled into 5 independent cohorts in Germany and Romania. Clinical and microbiological data, and whole-blood for RNA transcriptomic analysis were collected at pre-defined timepoints throughout therapy. Treatment outcomes were ascertained one year after end-of-therapy. A whole-blood RNA therapy end model was developed in a multi-step process involving a machine-learning algorithm to identify hypothetical individual end-of-treatment timepoints. Fifty patients with drug-susceptible tuberculosis and 30 patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis were recruited in the German identification cohorts (DS- and MDR-GIC), 28 patients with drug-susceptible tuberculosis and 32 patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in the German validation cohorts (DS- and MDR-GVC), and 52 patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in the Romanian validation cohort (MDR-RVC). A 22-gene RNA model that defined cure-associated end-of-therapy timepoints was derived from the DS- and MDR-GIC data. The model accurately predicted clinical outcomes for patients in the DS-GVC (AUC=0.937 [95%CI:0.899-0.976]) and suggested that cure may be achieved with shorter treatment durations for tuberculosis patients in the MDR-GIC (mean reduction 218.0 days, 34.2%, p<0.001), the MDR-GVC (mean reduction 211.0 days, 32.9%, p<0.001), and the MDR-RVC (mean reduction of 161.0 days, 23.4%, p=0.001). Biomarker-guided management may substantially shorten the duration of therapy for many patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.

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