Safety and Tolerability of Metformin in People With Tuberculosis (TB) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)

The METHOD trial is a Phase II A randomized, open-label trial of metformin added to standard anti-tuberculosis treatment (ATT) and anti-retroviral therapy (ART) in TB/HIV co-infected patients. HIV-positive adults (treated or ART-naïve) newly diagnosed with sputum culture-positive, drug-sensitive pulmonary TB will be recruited to and enrolled in the study. All participants in the interventional study will take standard ATT for drug-sensitive pulmonary TB starting at enrollment. Participants in the metformin arm will begin taking metformin 1 week later and metformin will be stopped on week-12. The total cohort is sample size N=112, comprising 56 participants each in two parallel study arms (standard therapy or standard therapy plus metformin) with the goal of retaining 100 participants with evaluable data for analysis. The duration of the METHOD trial is 5 years. The duration of individual participation in the interventional arms of the study is 36 weeks, not including an initial period of screening over an interval of up to 14 additional days prior to study enrollment. The final clinic visit coincides with the completion of ATT at week-24. The final follow-up contact is a phone interview at week-36. Ten consenting participants from each study arm (n=20 total) will have intensive pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) sampling. The remaining 92 participants will have sparse PK/PD sampling.