Book Review

Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to anti-tuberculosis (anti-TB) drugs are common and sometimes can be life threatening. Only a few books/monographs focussing on this clinical problem are currently available. Given this background, this book made interesting reading. This content is organized into 21 chapters. The first chapter describes anti-TB drug dosages and regimens for adults and children, followed by the chapter on treatment duration. The subsequent chapters deal with pharmacology of and ADRs encountered with anti-TB drugs used in newly diagnosed TB and drug-resistant (DR) TB patients. Other drug–drug and drug–food interactions in newly diagnosed TB and DR-TB patients are covered in subsequent chapters. Treatment of TB in special situations such as pregnancy and underlying renal and hepatic diseases, including case-based approach, is covered in the ensuing chapters. The principles of management of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and rifampicin-resistant TB (RR-TB) and treatment of MDR-TB and extensively DR-TB in special situations (including case-based approach) are covered thereafter. Shorter regimens to treat MDR-TB and RR-TB and monitoring of treatment and ADRs in DR-TB are covered in subsequent chapters. Drug–drug interactions between anti-TB drugs and antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and ADRs of anti-TB and ARV treatment are also covered. The last two chapters deal with epidemiology of ADRs seen with anti-TB drug treatment of new patients, with second-line drugs in patients treated for MDR-TB.

This book will serve as a useful guide to help undergraduate and postgraduate medical students, practitioners, programme managers treating TB patients and other researchers. The language is easy to read. Each chapter is well structured, contains information neatly organized in tables and has references listed at the end as ‘Further readings’ as well. The size is handy and the book is well produced and printed and the layout is clear and easy on the eye of the reader.

One would expect a more detailed coverage on anti-TB drug-induced hepatotoxicity in a separate, stand-alone chapter in a book of this nature. Some of the key evidence, like that listed in the evidence-based ‘Guidelines on extrapulmonary tuberculosis for India (INDEX-TB guidelines)’, do not find mention in this book. Published in 2019, this book contains up-to-date information as on 2016. Given that there has been a sea of change and a paradigm shift in the diagnosis and management of DR-TB since then, this book still remains a good, historic, archival, vintage addition to the sparse literature available on this topic.