Current treatment regimens for tuberculosis (TB) are typically lengthy, involve multiple agents and are not always successful. These difficulties are partly due to poor penetration of drugs into the pulmonary granulomas that are characteristic of TB. Here, Datta et al. show in humans and rabbits that TB pulmonary granulomas exhibit a functionally abnormal vasculature. In TB-infected rabbits, the VEGF-specific antibody bevacizumab significantly decreased the total number of vessels while normalizing the structure and function of remaining vessels, improving delivery of a small-molecule tracer into granulomas.
References
Datta, M. et al. Anti-vascular endothelial growth factor treatment normalizes tuberculosis granuloma vasculature and improves small molecule delivery. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112, 1827–1832 (2015)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Crunkhorn, S. Improving drug delivery. Nat Rev Drug Discov 14, 238 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd4603
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd4603