A combination of an experimental drug, an unapproved antibiotic used for treating other infections and an established tuberculosis drug may provide a simpler, more rapid treatment for TB, according to results from a small pilot trial. The combined treatment eliminated 99% of the TB bacteria from the patients' bodies within two weeks in the study, which suggests that it may be possible to dramatically shorten treatment regimens. And because the regimen does not use any drugs that the TB bacterium has become resistant to or that interfere with HIV treatment, they could potentially be used to treat TB patients who are HIV-positive and those who have drug-resistant TB -- both of which are growing problems.