Tuberculosis still is the world’s leading cause of death from a single infectious agent and has affected approximately 10 million people in 2018. The development of new technologies for treating tuberculosis is among the priority goals for the global fight against the disease. The present work makes a technological prospecting from patent documents, aiming to identify new technologies developed for the treatment of the disease, analyzing the most promising trends. The identification of new technologies was carried out through the Orbit Intelligence portal using the sentence: “(+ tuberculosis +) / TI / AB AND (A 61K OR A 61P) / IPC AND PRD> =2015” as a search strategy. We identified 41 patent families with experimental evidence (in vitro / in vivo) of efficacy against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, including resistant strains. The new technologies mainly consist of chemical synthesis products. The patent protection was demanded in countries with promising markets, with potential licensors and strong intellectual property regulations. The use of patents as a source of information can contribute to orientate the development of new drugs for tuberculosis.

The increasing problems with multidrug resistance in relation to Corynebacterium, including C. diphtheriae, are examples of challenges confronting many countries. For this reason, Brazilian C. diphtheriae strains were evaluated by the E-Test for their susceptibility to nine antibacterial drugs used in therapy. Resistance (MIC < 0.002; 0.38 µg/ml) to penicillin G was found in 14.8% of the strains tested. Although erythromycin (MIC90 0.75 µg/ml) and azithromycin (MIC90 0.064 µg/ml) were active against C. diphtheriae in this study, 4.2% of the strains showed decreased susceptibility (MIC 1.0 µg/ml) to erythromycin. Multiple resistance profiles were determined by the disk diffusion method using 31 antibiotics. Most C. diphtheriae strains (95.74%) showed resistance to mupirocin, aztreonam, ceftazidime, and/or oxacillin, ampicillin, penicillin, tetracycline, clindamycin, lincomycin, and erythromycin. This study presents the antimicrobial susceptibility profiles of Brazilian C. diphtheriae isolates. The data are of value to practitioners, and suggest that some concern exists regarding the use of penicillin.

Um caso de difteria ocorreu, em 1999, em mulher de 32 anos de idade. A paciente iniciou episódio de dor de garganta imediatamente após participação em reunião com profissionais europeus durante cinco dias consecutivos, no Rio de Janeiro. Ela declarou ter sido submetida ao esquema completo de imunização contra difteria (DTP-tríplice bacteriana) na infância e a doses de reforço (dT-dupla adulto) há dois anos. O diagnóstico clínico da doença só foi firmado após o laboratório de microbiologia ter confirmado a capacidade de produção de toxina pela amostra isolada de Corynebacterium diphtheriae var. gravis, biotipo não fermentador de sacarose comumente encontrado em diversos países europeus e responsável pela atual epidemia na região correspondente a antiga União Soviética. Na era da vacinação antidiftérica, indivíduos adultos de nossa comunidade podem apresentar-se potencialmente susceptíveis a difteria.

In 1999, a case of diphtheria in a 32-year-old woman was reported. The patient developed a sore throat immediately after participating of a five-day meeting with European workers in Rio de Janeiro. Her history included complete pediatric immunization (DTP) and three doses of adult formulation tetanus and diphtheria toxoid (dT) two years earlier. Clinical diagnosis of diphtheria was not made until microbiologic examination of specimens confirmed toxigenicity of Corynebacterium diphtheriae var. gravis, a biotype currently found circulating within Europe where diphtheria remains epidemic. This case reinforces the potential susceptibility of Brazilian adults to epidemic diphtheria in the vaccine era.