Publications by authors named "C A Bachman"

Cough is a common and commonly ignored symptom of lung disease. Cough is often perceived as difficult to quantify, frequently self-limiting, and non-specific. However, cough has a central role in the clinical detection of many lung diseases including tuberculosis (TB), which remains the leading infectious disease killer worldwide.

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Cough is a common and commonly ignored symptom of lung disease. Cough is often perceived as difficult to quantify, frequently self-limiting, and non-specific. However, cough has a central role in the clinical detection of many lung diseases including tuberculosis (TB), which remains the leading infectious disease killer worldwide.

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Background: Invasive group A streptococcal disease (iGAS) is caused by group A bacteria. In 2022, multiple disease alerts for iGAS in the Island Health region, in the context of increased infections in the paediatric population in Europe and the United States, prompted further investigation into local trends. This surveillance study summarizes epidemiological trends of iGAS in the region covered by Island Health, a regional health authority in British Columbia, in 2022.

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Background: Sputum-based testing is a barrier to increasing access to molecular diagnostics for tuberculosis (TB). Many people with TB are unable to produce sputum, and sputum processing increases assay complexity and cost. Tongue swabs are emerging as an alternative to sputum, but performance limits are uncertain.

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Article Synopsis
  • Reliance on sputum testing hampers access to TB molecular diagnostics, leading researchers to explore tongue swabs as a potential alternative.
  • From June 2022 to July 2023, a study in Kampala, Uganda, involved 397 adults to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of tongue swab qPCR against traditional sputum tests.
  • The findings indicate a high concordance (98.2%) between tongue swab qPCR and sputum tests, with sensitivity at 91.0% and specificity at 98.9%, suggesting that tongue swabs could effectively facilitate TB diagnosis.
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