Clinical application of time-of-flight mass spectrometry nucleic acid detection technology in diagnosis of drug-resistant pulmonary tuberculosis.

Purpose: This study aims to evaluate the clinical diagnostic value of matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) for tuberculosis and drug-resistant tuberculosis.

Patients And Methods: Totally 201 pulmonary tuberculosis patients were recruited retrospectively. All patients underwent smear microscopy, Mycobacterium growth indicator tube (MGIT) 960 culture, loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) molecular testing, Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert), and MassARRAY assay which is a MALDI-TOF MS based method.

Long-term lamivudine for chronic hepatitis B and cirrhosis: A real-life cohort study.

Aim: To investigate clinical outcomes of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and liver cirrhosis (LC) patients under whole-course management with lamivudine (LAM).

Methods: This was a retrospective-prospective cohort study based on two nonrandom cohorts of Chinese patients (LAM group and history control group). Two hundred thirty-eight patients with LAM treatment for at least 12 mo under whole-course management were included in the LAM group.