New tuberculosis test makes diagnosis faster
An international team of researchers has succeeded in developing a new tuberculosis test that could be particularly useful in developing countries. With the help of inverted microscopes, they were able to examine samples more quickly and precisely for the pathogen and its resistance to certain drugs than was possible with the gold standard test carried out in parallel.
The MODS (microscopic-observation drug-susceptibility) procedure uses microscopes with light coming in from above. A team led by David Moore from Imperial College London used them to examine 3,760 saliva and sputum samples over a period of time of 40 days. The sensitivity to TB in MODS was 97.8 percent. In the other two gold standard culture tests, on the other hand, it was significantly lower at 89 percent (for an automated mycobacterial culture and 84 percent (for Lowenstein-Jensen cultures). The average detection time of the pathogen was seven days for the MODS method, 13 days for the mycobacterial culture and Been to Lowenstein-Jensen for 26 days.
The new procedure has also shown very good results in tests with the TB antibiotics isoniazid, rifampin, ethambutol and streptomycin. The results would also have been available within a week - conventional methods can often only deliver results after months.
