Bedaquiline Drug Resistance Emergence Assessment in Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB): a 5-Year Prospective Surveillance Study of Bedaquiline and Other Second-Line Drug Susceptibility Testing in MDR-TB Isolates.

Bedaquiline Drug Resistance Emergence Assessment in Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) (DREAM) was a 5-year (2015 to 2019) phenotypic drug resistance surveillance study across 11 countries. DREAM assessed the susceptibility of 5,036 MDR-TB isolates of bedaquiline treatment-naive patients to bedaquiline and other antituberculosis drugs by the 7H9 broth microdilution (BMD) and 7H10/7H11 agar dilution (AD) MIC methods. Bedaquiline AD MIC quality control (QC) range for the H37Rv reference strain was unchanged, but the BMD MIC QC range (0.

Biomarkers of treatment success in fully sensitive pulmonary tuberculosis patients: a multicenter longitudinal study.

Novel biomarkers that are able to accurately monitor tuberculosis (TB) treatment effectiveness are needed to adjust therapy and identify a need for a regimen change. In our study, conducted on a cohort comprising 100 pulmonary TB patients, we analyzed the role of plasma cytokines and Toll-like receptors expression as biomarkers of treatment response. Changes in toll-interacting protein (TOLLIP) and lymphocyte antigen 96 (LY96) gene expression as well as nine cytokine levels over the first 2 months were significantly associated with successful treatment outcome.

Characterization of Mutations Conferring Resistance to Rifampin in Mycobacterium tuberculosis Clinical Strains.

Resistance of to rifampin (RMP), mediated by mutations in the gene coding for the beta-subunit of RNA polymerase, poses a serious threat to the efficacy of clinical management and, thus, control programs for tuberculosis (TB). The contribution of many individual mutations to the development and level of RMP resistance remains elusive. In this study, the incidence of mutations throughout the gene among 115 clinical isolates, both resistant and susceptible to RMP, was determined.

Factors Associated with Persistent Sputum Positivity at the End of the Second Month of Tuberculosis Treatment in Lithuania.

Background: Non-conversion of sputum smear and culture prolongs the infectivity of the patient and has been associated with unfavorable outcomes. We aimed to evaluate factors associated with persistent sputum positivity at the end of two months of treatment of new case pulmonary tuberculosis (TB).

Methods: Data of 87 human immunodeficiency virus-negative patients with culture-positive drug-susceptible pulmonary TB admitted to local university hospital between September 2015 and September 2016 were reviewed.

Time-and-motion tool for the assessment of working time in tuberculosis laboratories: a multicentre study.

Setting: Implementation of novel diagnostic assays in tuberculosis (TB) laboratory diagnosis requires effective management of time and resources.

Objective: To further develop and assess at multiple centres a time-and-motion (T&M) tool as an objective means for recording the actual time spent on running laboratory assays.

Design: Multicentre prospective study conducted in six European Union (EU) reference TB laboratories.

Tuberculosis cases caused by heterogeneous infection in Eastern Europe and their influence on outcomes.

Introduction: Mycobacterium tuberculosis superinfection is known to occur in areas with high rates of tuberculosis (TB) and has a significant impact on overall clinical TB management.

Aim: We aimed to estimate the superinfection rate in cohorts of drug sensitive and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) patients from Eastern Europe and the potential role of a second MDR TB strain infecting a patient with active non-MDR TB in treatment outcome.

Methods: The study population included 512 serial M.

Performance of the GenoType MTBDRplus assay (v2.0) and a new extended GenoType MTBDRsl assay (v2.0) for the molecular detection of multi- and extensively drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis on isolates primarily from Lithuania.

The emergence of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) hampers infection control. To assess the performance of an extended rapid novel molecular analysis for the detection of resistance conferring mutations to fluoroquinolones (gyrA, gyrB genes) and aminoglycosides/cyclic peptides (16S rRNA rrs gene, eis promotor region) compared to phenotypic susceptibility and sequencing, 43 multidrug-resistant (MDR) and 10 susceptible clinical isolates were analyzed. Results were compared to a previous version.