Folia Medica 62(3): 444-452, doi: 10.3897/folmed.62.e48742
Linezolid: a Promising Agent for the Treatment of Multiple and Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis
expand article infoDionysia D. Fermeli‡, Theodoros D. Marantos§, Alexandros-Leonidas D. Liarakos|, George D. Panayiotakopoulos, Vasileios K. Dedes#, Georgios I. Panoutsopoulos#
‡ General Hospital of Sparta, Sparta, Greece§ University of Athens, Attikon General Hospital, Athens, Greece| George Eliot Hospital, Coventry, United Kingdom¶ University of Patras, Patras, Greece# University of Peloponnese, Tripolis, Greece

Corresponding author: Georgios I. Panoutsopoulos ( gpanouts@uop.gr )

© Dionysia D. Fermeli, Theodoros D. Marantos, Alexandros-Leonidas D. Liarakos, George D. Panayiotakopoulos, Vasileios K. Dedes, Georgios I. Panoutsopoulos.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Fermeli DD, Marantos TD, Liarakos A-LD, Panayiotakopoulos GD, Dedes VK, Panoutsopoulos GI (2020) Linezolid: a Promising Agent for the Treatment of Multiple and Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis. Folia Medica 62(3): 444-452. https://doi.org/10.3897/folmed.62.e48742
Open Access
Abstract
Tuberculosis is a severe, infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The aim of this review was to present the efficacy of linezolid as an agent against multidrug and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis as gathered from many recent research studies. Linezolid seems to have strongly the potential of being used as an anti-tuberculosis agent because it blocks bacterial ribosomal protein synthesis. Nevertheless caution is required because of the adverse effects it causes, especially when the linezolid daily dosage exceeds 600 mg. The most severe adverse effects include anemia, peripheral neuropathy, optic neuropathy and thrombocytopenia. Still, more trials and research need to be done in order to gather more information and value the cost-benefit dosage of the treatment. 
Keywords
adverse effects, efficacy, extensively drug-resistant TB, linezolid, multi-drug resistant TB