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American Society for Microbiology, Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 11(49), p. 3905-3911, 2011

DOI: 10.1128/jcm.00547-11

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Molecular bacterial load assay, a culture-free biomarker for rapid and accurate quantification of sputum Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacillary load during treatment.

Journal article published in 2011 by Isobella Honeyborne, Pd van Helden, Td D. McHugh, Pp P. J. Phillips, Selina Bannoo, Anna Bateson, Nora Carroll, Fm M. Perrin, Katharina Ronacher ORCID, Laura Wright, Paul D. Van Helden, Gerhard Walzl, Sh H. Gillespie
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

ABSTRACT A molecular assay to quantify Mycobacterium tuberculosis is described. In vitro , 98% ( n = 96) of sputum samples with a known number of bacilli (10 7 to 10 2 bacilli) could be enumerated within 0.5 log 10 . In comparison to culture, the molecular bacterial load (MBL) assay is unaffected by other microorganisms present in the sample, results are obtained more quickly (within 24 h) and are seldom inhibited (0.7% samples), and the MBL assay critically shows the same biphasic decline as observed longitudinally during treatment. As a biomarker of treatment response, the MBL assay responds rapidly, with a mean decline in bacterial load for 111 subjects of 0.99 log 10 (95% confidence interval [95% CI], 0.81 to 1.17) after 3 days of chemotherapy. There was a significant association between the rate of bacterial decline during the same 3 days and bacilli ml −1 sputum at day 0 (linear regression, P = 0.0003) and a 3.62 increased odds ratio of relapse for every 1 log 10 increase in pretreatment bacterial load (95% CI, 1.53 to 8.59).