The efficacy of bedaquiline versus kanamycin in multi-drug resistant tuberculosis: A systematic scoping review

BACKGROUND: Drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) has become a serious cause of concern both on a global scale and in South Africa. It is associated with a lower successful treatment rate, thus creating a hurdle in achieving good treatment outcomes for patients. AIM: The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of the drug kanamycin, an injectable aminoglycoside, to bedaquiline, a newer oral drug used to treat DR-TB. METHODS: PubMed and Google Scholar, both of which are online databases, were extensively searched using the necessary keywords so that studies that were relevant to the scoping review were retrieved. A data-charting list was developed to extract the needed data for this scoping review. RESULTS: The main findings of the scoping review showed that bedaquiline was highly efficacious in the treatment of DR-TB, and that it was a valuable addition in the treatment of DR-TB. The findings of the study also showed that kanamycin does not have good efficacy against DR-TB. and its use extends the treatment of DR˗TB. CONCLUSION: It stands to reason that bedaquiline replaces kanamycin in the DR-TB drug regimen as it was shown to be more efficacious and patients experienced better treatment outcomes in a shorter period of time. There were also fewer adverse effects associated with bedaquiline as compared to kanamycin. CONTRIBUTION: Bedaquiline-based DR-TB therapy is more efficacious than aminoglycoside-based regimens which include kanamycin.