Treatment of nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease requires a stepwise and multidisciplinary approach

Nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease (NTM-PD) occurs in people with inborn or acquired susceptibility factors. Current treatment guideline recommendations include a watchful waiting strategy, antimycobacterial and surgical treatment, with a comprehensive assessment of clinical, microbiological, and radiological factors determining which approach is most suitable.

Treatment outcomes in NTM-PD are unsatisfactory with culture conversion rates varying from 30 to 80% and recurrence rates up to 50%. Possible explanations include our insufficient knowledge and management of host susceptibility factors, poor guideline adherence by physicians, frequent adverse drug reactions demanding premature discontinuation, inadequate drug exposures due to both drug-drug interactions and inter-patient variability in pharmacokinetics, and a lack of pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics targets.

We describe a stepwise approach to NTM-PD treatment, complementing existing guidelines, including recommendations for a multidisciplinary assessment, classification of disease severity, personalized supportive care, antimycobacterial treatment, adjuvant surgery, and host-directed therapies. The recommendations are informed by PubMed literature and the authors' clinical expertise. Recognizing that our experience is shaped within a specialized reference clinic, we acknowledge that some of these recommendations may not be applicable in all settings.