Mycobacterium tuberculosis drug-resistance testing: challenges, recent developments and perspectives
Clinical Microbiology and Infection·
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.cmi.2016.10.022
- PMID
- 27810467
- PMCID
- —
- OpenAlex
- W2547937482
- Study type
- Journal article
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Article type
- journal-article
- Integrity
- current
Why this research matters now
Accurate drug-resistance testing is essential for predicting cure in multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis cases and for gathering surveillance data on resistance patterns worldwide.
Structured evidence summary
Research question
The article reviews methods and techniques for drug-resistance testing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, examining both phenotypic and genotypic approaches.
Study design
This is a narrative review examining different phenotypic and genotypic drug-resistance testing methods for M. tuberculosis.
Population and setting
The review addresses testing practices globally, comparing approaches in high-income countries that commonly use culture-based methods with low-income countries where genotypic methods are more feasible due to reduced culture and biosafety requirements.
Main findings
Phenotypic and genotypic methods are complementary for achieving high sensitivity and specificity in detecting drug resistance. Genotypic tests can rapidly identify key resistance mechanisms such as rpoB mutations for rifampicin resistance, but face challenges including false-resistance results from mutations that do not confer resistance and false-susceptibility when mutations differ from common mechanisms. No consensus reference method exists for minimum inhibitory concentration determination, which is needed to assess new anti-tuberculosis agents and establish breakpoints.
Public-health relevance
Accurate drug-resistance testing is essential for predicting cure in multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis cases and for gathering surveillance data on resistance patterns worldwide.
Important limitations
This summary relies on the supplied single-article abstract and metadata. The original paper is required for decision-grade interpretation of the review's methodology, comprehensiveness, and evidence synthesis approach.
GIDS interpretation
The article's focus on tuberculosis drug-resistance testing methods and its classification under antimicrobial resistance, diagnostics, and surveillance topics make it discoverable through queries addressing MDR/XDR tuberculosis detection, genotypic versus phenotypic testing approaches, or challenges in establishing reference standards for susceptibility testing.
Related GIDS surveillance
Literature context does not validate, explain, or change a surveillance signal. Exact and contextual relationships are shown separately.
Evidence relationships
This article has 10 auditable classifier relationships to diseases, places, topics, and study design.