European Medical Journal: TB Precision Medicine Could Shorten Treatment

17 January 2026

European Medical Journal news story

TB precision medicine may shorten therapy by using clinical phenotypes to guide stratified treatment with monitoring.

Despite decades of progress, TB treatment typically remains 4–6 months once disease is diagnosed. This perspective argues that one barrier to shorter regimens is the lack of a standardized way to classify disease severity before treatment begins. Today, clinicians often rely on relatively crude markers such as lung cavities on chest imaging and bacillary burden on smear microscopy, particularly in pulmonary TB.

A study proposes shifting toward a fuller clinical phenotype, integrating patient characteristics, radiological extent of disease, mycobacterial burden, drug susceptibility, and host response. Researchers highlight how newer biomarkers, including blood-based transcriptomic and proteomic signatures, could strengthen initial stratification but are not yet routinely applied in real-world settings.

Read the full news story here.

Source: European Medical Journal