Clinical Experience with Terramycin as an Adjunctive Agent in the Chemotherapy of Tuberculosis

¹ Medical Director, The Rocky Glen Sanatorium for Tuberculosis.

The treatment of tuberculosis is still a complex and prolonged procedure, and no single drug has been found to be effective over a protracted period.

Present treatment usually includes a primary agent which exerts the major tuberculostatic action, the main choice still being between streptomycin and isoniazid. To this primary agent we usually add an ancillary drug, which aids in preventing emergence of organisms resistant to the primary drug. Para-aminosalicylic acid has been the drug of choice for this purpose, but its usefulness is restricted by the frequent occurrence of gastro-intestinal irritation in proper dosage.

Other antituberculosis agents have been used to lesser extent, such as viomycin and, more recently, cycloserine, but we still are sorely in need of an alternative ancillary agent for the many cases in which para-aminosalicylic acid cannot be tolerated or is no longer effective.

We have used Terramycin as an adjunct to isoniazid in 16 patients, and it was our impression that this combination was fully as effective as, and in a few instances, perhaps more so than any other combination of antituberculosis drugs. The use of Terramycin as an ancillary drug together with isoniazid, streptomycin, or viomycin is encouraged for all patients in whom para-aminosalicylic acid cannot be employed.