Isoniazid or rifampicin preventive therapy with and without screening for subclinical TB: a modeling analysis

BACKGROUND: Short-course, rifamycin-based regimens could facilitate scale-up of tuberculosis preventive therapy (TPT), but it is unclear how stringently tuberculosis (TB) disease should be ruled out before TPT use. METHODS: We developed a state-transition model of a TPT intervention among two TPT-eligible cohorts: adults newly diagnosed with HIV in South Africa (PWH) and TB household contacts in Pakistan (HHCs). We modeled two TPT regimens—4 months of rifampicin [4R] or 6 months of isoniazid [6H]—comparing each to a reference of no intervention. Before initiating TPT, TB disease was excluded either through symptom-only screening or with additional radiographic screening that could detect subclinical TB but might limit access to the TPT intervention. TPT’s potential curative effects on both latent and subclinical TB were modeled, as were both acquisitions of resistance and prevention of drug-resistant disease. Although all eligible individuals received the screening and/or TPT interventions, the modeled TB outcomes comprised only those with latent or subclinical TB that would have progressed to symptomatic disease if untreated. RESULTS: When prescribed after only symptom-based TB screening (such that individuals with subclinical TB were included among TPT recipients), 4R averted 45 active (i.e., symptomatic) TB cases (95% uncertainty range 24–79 cases or 40–89% of progressions to active TB) per 1000 PWH [17 (9–29, 43–94%) per 1000 HHCs]; 6H averted 37 (19–66, 52–73%) active TB cases among PWH [13 (7–23, 53–75%) among HHCs]. With this symptom-only screening, for each net rifampicin resistance case added by 4R, 12 (3–102) active TB cases were averted among PWH (37 [9–580] among HHCs); isoniazid-resistant TB was also reduced. Similarly, 6H after symptom-only screening increased isoniazid resistance while reducing overall and rifampicin-resistant active TB. Screening for subclinical TB before TPT eliminated this net increase in resistance to the TPT drug; however, if the screening requirement reduced TPT access by more than 10% (the estimated threshold for 4R among HHCs) to 30% (for 6H among PWH), it was likely to reduce the intervention’s overall TB prevention impact. CONCLUSIONS: All modeled TPT strategies prevent TB relative to no intervention, and differences between TPT regimens or between screening approaches are small relative to uncertainty in the outcomes of any given strategy. If most TPT-eligible individuals can be screened for subclinical TB, then pairing such screening with rifamycin-based TPT maximizes active TB prevention and does not increase rifampicin resistance. Where subclinical TB cannot be routinely excluded without substantially reducing TPT access, the choice of TPT regimen requires weighing 4R’s efficacy advantages (as well as its greater safety and shorter duration that we did not directly model) against the consequences of rifampicin resistance in a small fraction of recipients. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12916-021-02189-w.