Shorter tuberculosis treatment regimens will reduce costs for patients and their families, conclude researchers who carried out a comparative study in Tanzania and Bangladesh looking at the out-of-pocket costs incurred by TB patients in both countries. The main objective of the study was to quantify the potential savings of a 4 month regimen to patients, because a number of new drugs in the current development pipeline have the potential to shorten standard first-line TB therapy from 6 months to 4 months.