Kay ID, Palladino S, Lavis NJ, Flexman J; American Society for Microbiology. General Meeting.
Abstr Gen Meet Am Soc Microbiol. 1997 May 4-8; 97: 177 (abstract no. C325).
Royal Perth Hospital, Perth, Western Australia.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare cause respiratory disease which cannot be distinguished clinically. Routine methods for the laboratory detection of mycobacteria involve microscopy and culture of clinical material. Microscopy is insensitive and culture may take several weeks to become positive. Once a preliminary diagnosis of mycobacterial infection has been made, either by direct microscopy or culture, it is important to distinguish between M. tuberculosis or M. avium-intracellulare. This allows appropriate treatment and infection control measures to be implemented. One hundred and twenty one consecutive respiratory specimens referred for mycobacterial studies were tested retrospectively for M. avium and M. intracellulare by the Roche Amplicor Detection Assay. Eighty seven were smear negative and 34 smear positive for acid fast bacilli. Twenty nine specimens were culture positive for M. avium or M. intracellulare, 16 for M. tuberculosis and 10 for other mycobacterial species. All the culture positive non-M. avium-intracellulare specimens were negative by this PCR. Sixty six specimens were smear and culture negative for mycobacteria and all tested negative by this PCR. Six smear negative specimens were culture positive for M. avium or M. intracellulare of which only one was PCR positive (sensitivity 16.6% and specificity 100%). Twenty three specimens were smear and culture positive for M. avium or M. intracellulare, 20 of which were positive by PCR (sensitivity 86.9% and specificity 100%). For smear positive respiratory specimens this assay appears to be a rapid and useful technique to distinguish between M. tuberculosis and M. avium-intracellulare respiratory infections.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Bacteriological Techniques
- Evaluation Studies
- Mycobacterium Infections
- Mycobacterium avium
- Mycobacterium avium Complex
- Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare Infection
- Mycobacterium tuberculosis
- Polymerase Chain Reaction
- Sensitivity and Specificity
- Specimen Handling
- Tuberculosis
- methods
Other ID:
UI: 102235273
From Meeting Abstracts