The need for new therapies to treat multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis is great. The new compound TMC207, a diarylquinoline that inhibits mycobacterial ATP synthase, shows promising activity against MDR tuberculosis. In this study involving 47 patients, the administration of TMC207, as compared with placebo, resulted in a shorter time to sputum-culture conversion and a significant increase in the proportion of patients achieving culture conversion to negative.

The rate of tuberculosis among foreign-born persons in the United States is approximately 10 times as high as that among U.S.-born persons. Diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis before emigration can decrease the burden of tuberculosis in the United States. This study showed that from 1999 through 2005, about 30,000 cases of smear-negative tuberculosis and 33,000 cases of inactive tuberculosis were diagnosed by overseas medical screening of 3 million U.S.-bound immigrants and refugees.

The cryopyrin-associated periodic syndrome (CAPS) is associated with an overproduction of interleukin-1. Canakinumab, an anti–interleukin-1β monoclonal antibody, was given to 35 patients with CAPS and was found to induce remission in most of the patients.

In nine patients with neonatal onset of severe inflammatory lesions affecting mainly bone and skin and associated with mutations of IL1RN, which encodes the inhibitor of proinflammatory interleukin-1β and the interleukin-1–receptor antagonist, functional studies showed the unfettered release of proinflammatory cytokines from mononuclear cells in the absence of the interleukin-1–receptor antagonist. Treatment with the recombinant interleukin-1–receptor antagonist anakinra promptly resolved the signs and symptoms of the disorder.

This report describes the case of a boy with a pustular rash, osteopenia, fractures, thrombosis, and pulmonary insufficiency. He has a deletion of a cluster of genes from chromosome 2q13 that encode members of the interleukin-1 family, most notably the gene encoding interleukin-1–receptor antagonist (IL1RN). Treatment with anakinra, an interleukin-1–receptor antagonist, promptly resolved all signs of the disease.