Extensively drug resistant tuberculosis in a high income country: a report of four unrelated cases.

Background: Multi drug resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) remains a major threat to public health, reinforced by recent reports about the clinical course of patients infected with extensively drug resistant (XDR) strains in South Africa. There is little information about the clinical course of XDR tuberculosis patients in industrialised countries.

Mycobacterium monacense in a patient with a pulmonary tumor.

We report on a Mycobacterium monacense infection associated with a pulmonary tumor in a Chinese patient. To our knowledge, this is the first case of M. monacense described in a non-European patient with a tuberculosis-like disease.

Mycobacterium monacense sp. nov.

Four bacterial strains were isolated from independent clinical specimens in different countries and their genotypic and phenotypic characters support their classification in a novel species within the genus Mycobacterium. One strain was clearly responsible for a severe, post-traumatic wound infection in a healthy boy. The novel species, for which the name Mycobacterium monacense sp.

Characterization of Mycobacterium caprae isolates from Europe by mycobacterial interspersed repetitive unit genotyping.

Mycobacterium caprae, a recently defined member of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, causes tuberculosis among animals and, to a limited extent, in humans in several European countries. To characterize M. caprae in comparison with other Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex members and to evaluate genotyping methods for this species, we analyzed 232 M.

[Microbiological diagnosis of mycobacterioses caused by Mycobacterium haemophilum].

Introduction: According to foreign literature Mycobacterium haemophilum causes diseases of the skin, subcutis and lymph nodes in immunocompetent individuals, while in AIDS patients and in subjects after kidney transplantations it is responsible for osteomyelitis and disseminated infections.

Material And Methods: The authors tested the possibility of using a BioFM medium with the X-factor for the detection of Mycobacterium haemophilum in clinical samples and Middlebrook's 7H9 medium with ADC and the X-factor to establish the sensitivity of strains to antimicrobials using the MIC method.

Conclusions: Given the favourable results of preliminary tests the use of the BioFM medium was included among the routine methods applied at the department.

Comparison of an internally controlled, large-volume LightCycler assay for detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in clinical samples with the COBAS AMPLICOR assay.

We present a sensitive and specific assay for reliable and flexible detection of members of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) in clinical samples. This real-time PCR assay, which uses the LightCycler 2.0 instrument and 100-mul glass capillaries, can provide a result within 1 h after DNA extraction.

Molecular fingerprinting of Mycobacterium bovis subsp. caprae isolates from central Europe.

To study the dissemination of Mycobacterium bovis subsp. caprae, 79 European isolates from cattle, humans, and other hosts were examined by spoligotyping and IS6110 restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis. Among a total of 11 different spoligotypes identified, type C1 proved to be predominant (n = 62).