The standard treatment for the highly contagious form of lung disease - tuberculosis - takes 6 months.

Conventional TB Therapy prescribes a mix of antibiotics, typically four, given in view of a caregiver and taken together for six months.

Commonly known by its acronym DOTS, short for Directly Observed Therapy Short-Course, the treatment cures on average 95 percent of patients who finish taking their medications as originally prescribed.

However, by substituting moxifloxacin to the antibiotic combo, the treatment regimen will be reduced to 4 months - according to a team of tuberculosis (TB) experts at Johns Hopkins and in Brazil.

According to study senior author Richard E. Chaisson, M.D., a professor of medicine, epidemiology and international health at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and founding director of its Center for Tuberculosis Research:

"This is the most compelling evidence in nearly 25 years that a novel antibiotic drug combination works better than the current gold standard at curing active TB infection.

Beyond the obvious value of healing patients more quickly, a shorter treatment time could also cut down on transmission of the disease to others and make it easier for health care workers worldwide, who are overwhelmed by large numbers of patients, to treat more people and to treat them faster."

The shorter treatment period will definitely benefit TB patients who normally would miss taking the drugs on time and will also lessen the risk of being drug-resistant - which are always the problem with the lengthy treatment period.

Find more details from Johns Hopkins Medical.