ArticleJournal of clinical microbiology2011
Molecular bacterial load assay, a culture-free biomarker for rapid and accurate quantification of sputum Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacillary load during treatment.
Article in Journal of clinical microbiology, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 69 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
69 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Biomarkers That Correlate with Active Pulmonary Tuberculosis Treatment Response: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2022Pooled it
- Meta-narrative review of molecular methods for diagnosis and monitoring of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis treatment in adults.International journal of mycobacteriologyPooled it
- Adaptation of the molecular bacterial load assay for real-time quantification ofMicrobiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Assessment of a bacterial quantification assay to detect and monitorERJ open research · 2026Article
- Divergent Evolution of Tuberculosis Lesions During Treatment: A Longitudinal CT-Based Analysis of Progression and Regression Patterns.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Beyond culturability: VBNC-like and differentially culturableFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2026Review
- Performance evaluation of alternative bacteriological measures of response to MDR/RR-TB therapy during the initial 16 weeks of treatment.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- 70% ethanol preserves mycobacterial RNA from cultures more efficiently than GTC-TCEP.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The clinical-stage drug BTZ-043 accumulates in murine tuberculosis lesions and efficiently acts against Mycobacterium tuberculosis.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Article
- The Human PathogenBiology · 2024Article
- Developing biomarker assays to accelerate tuberculosis drug development: defining target product profiles.The Lancet. Microbe · 2024Review
- Suppression of host gene expression is associated with latent TB infection: a possible diagnostic biomarker.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Use of multiple pharmacodynamic measures to deconstruct the Nix-TB regimen in a short-course murine model of tuberculosis.Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy · 2024Article
- Article
- Review
- New Insights into Biomarkers for Evaluating Therapy Efficacy in Pulmonary Tuberculosis: A Narrative Review.Infectious diseases and therapy · 2023Review
- Performance of Tuberculosis Molecular Bacterial Load Assay Compared to Alere TB-LAM in Urine of Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients with HIV Co-Infections.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Tuberculosis Molecular Bacterial Load Assay Reveals Early Delayed Bacterial Killing in Patients With Relapse.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2023Article
- Diagnosis and biomarkers for ocular tuberculosis: From the present into the future.Theranostics · 2023Review
9 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
A molecular assay to quantify Mycobacterium tuberculosis is described. In vitro, 98% (n = 96) of sputum samples with a known number of bacilli (10(7) to 10(2) bacilli) could be enumerated within 0.5 log(10). In comparison to culture, the molecular bacterial load (MBL) assay is unaffected by other microorganisms present in the sample, results are obtained more quickly (within 24 h) and are seldom inhibited (0.7% samples), and the MBL assay critically shows the same biphasic decline as observed longitudinally during treatment. As a biomarker of treatment response, the MBL assay responds rapidly, with a mean decline in bacterial load for 111 subjects of 0.99 log(10) (95% confidence interval [95% CI], 0.81 to 1.17) after 3 days of chemotherapy. There was a significant association between the rate of bacterial decline during the same 3 days and bacilli ml(-1) sputum at day 0 (linear regression, P = 0.0003) and a 3.62 increased odds ratio of relapse for every 1 log(10) increase in pretreatment bacterial load (95% CI, 1.53 to 8.59).
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.