Sputum lipoarabinomannan (LAM) as a biomarker to determine sputum mycobacterial load: exploratory and model-based analyses of integrated data from four cohorts.

Background: Despite the high global disease burden of tuberculosis (TB), the disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection, novel treatments remain an urgent medical need. Development efforts continue to be hampered by the reliance on culture-based methods, which often take weeks to obtain due to the slow growth rate of Mtb. The availability of a "real-time" measure of treatment efficacy could accelerate TB drug development.