[Prevention of resistance to rifampicin by pyrazinamide in experimental tuberculosis in the mouse].

The capacity of Pyrazinamide (PZA) to prevent the selection of Rifampicin (RMP) resistant mutants was tested by the intravenous innoculation of 160 mice with 2 X 10(6) c.f.u. of M. tuberculosis, and two weeks later, the treatment of the mice either with 10 mg/kg/day RMP alone or with RMP + PZA 150 mg/kg/day. After three months of treatment, lungs and spleen were culture positive in respectively 95% and 90% of the mice treated with RMP alone and in 37% and 24% of the mice treated by RMP + PZA (p less than 10(-5). The strains isolated from lungs and spleen were resistant to Rifampicin in respectively 87% and 75% of the mice treated with RMP alone and in none of those treated with RMP + PZA.