Celebrating the impact of the British Thoracic Society Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) Clinical Advice Service in the 2023 Annual Report

The British Thoracic Society (BTS) has today published its latest annual report on the MDR-TB Clinical Advice Service that looks at the period from June 2021 to July 2023.

2023 marked the fifth year of the BTS MDR-TB Clinical Advice Service (CAS) Since its inauguration, the CAS has been driven by three main objectives:  the provision of expert advice on the treatment and monitoring of MDR-TB to clinicians; increasing the understanding of drug toxicity patterns across the UK and providing a gatekeeping function for the use of specially commissioned and novel drugs. A total of 582 cases have been discussed through the service during this time, and 100+ new cases are routinely discussed each year.

This report testifies the continuing success of the Clinical Advice Service, with direct benefits to both patients and clinicians facing the challenge of managing the most complex TB cases clear to see. The opportunity to access, prompt, case-by-case expert clinical advice improves the understanding and management of the disease, with the pooling of expert collaboration and knowledge proving particularly valuable. Between July 2021 and June 2023, nearly 2,000 individual messages from expert advisers were sent to clinicians who had approached the CAS with queries about their cases. This opportunity for discussion helps in identifying the most appropriate approach to treatment, which consequently plays a notable part in ultimately improving the outcomes of patients with MDR-TB.

Professor Onn Min Kon, Chair of the BTS MDR-TB Clinical Advice Service Steering Group comments,

“With the rates and numbers of people with TB once again rising, the work of the BTS MDR-TB Clinical Advice Service in helping clinicians facing the most complex TB cases is a valued support.  This latest Annual Report of the Clinical Advice Service gives a comprehensive insight into the MDR-TB landscape in the UK and importantly into the diligent work of the multi-disciplinary experts who so generously give their time to assist colleagues and their patients across the four nations.”

As a result of the success of the Clinical Advice Service so far, in late 2022 ethics approval was granted for the MDR-TB service to be continued for a further five years. In early 2023, a few further additions to the Service gained ethics approval, including advice for patients unable to give consent. The Clinical Advice Service is now considered a core component of the TB Action Plan for England, which aims to achieve a year-on-year reduction in TB incidence, towards a target of elimination by 2035.

Through the facilitation of the Clinical Advice Service, BTS is committed to achieving real-world benefits in the treatment and management of MDR-TB. Including the development of educational resources for clinicians off the back of the data collected through the Service, the hope is to reduce the social and fiscal burden of MDR-TB across the four nations.

If you are interested in joining the BTS MDR-TB Clinical Advice Service, please email your expression of interest to mdrtb@brit-thoracic.org.uk.

You can read the latest report here.