ArticleJournal of clinical microbiology2012
Optimizing outpatient serial sputum colony counting for studies of tuberculosis treatment in resource-poor settings.
Article in Journal of clinical microbiology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Contamination rates in serially sampled sputum specimens obtained during tuberculosis treatment to capture culture conversion.Microbiology spectrum · 2025Article
- High Intrapulmonary Rifampicin and Isoniazid Concentrations Are Associated With Rapid Sputum Bacillary Clearance in Patients With Pulmonary Tuberculosis.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2022Article
- Optimising fluorescein diacetate sputum smear microscopy for assessing patients with pulmonary tuberculosis.PloS one · 2019Article
- The TAM-TB Assay-A Promising TB Immune-Diagnostic Test With a Potential for Treatment Monitoring.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2019Article
- Phenotypic Changes on Mycobacterium Tuberculosis-Specific CD4 T Cells as Surrogate Markers for Tuberculosis Treatment Efficacy.Frontiers in immunology · 2018Article
- The importance of clinical pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic studies in unraveling the determinants of early and late tuberculosis outcomes.International journal of pharmacokinetics · 2017Review
- Serial image analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis colony growth reveals a persistent subpopulation in sputum during treatment of pulmonary TB.Tuberculosis (Edinburgh, Scotland) · 2016Article
- Pharmacodynamic Modeling of Bacillary Elimination Rates and Detection of Bacterial Lipid Bodies in Sputum to Predict and Understand Outcomes in Treatment of Pulmonary Tuberculosis.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2015Article
- Clofazimine shortens the duration of the first-line treatment regimen for experimental chemotherapy of tuberculosis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2015Article
- Article
- The role of delamanid in the treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis.Therapeutics and clinical risk management · 2015Review
- Recent advances in tuberculosis: New drugs and treatment regimens.Current respiratory medicine reviews · 2013Article
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 at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Serial Sputum Colony Counting (SSCC) is an important technique in clinical trials of new treatments for tuberculosis (TB). Quantitative cultures on selective Middlebrook agar are used to calculate the rate of bacillary elimination from sputum collected from patients at different time points during the first 2 months of therapy. However, the procedure can be complicated by high sample contamination rates. This study, conducted in a resource-poor setting in Malawi, assessed the ability of different antifungal drugs in selective agar to reduce contamination. Overall, 229 samples were studied and 15% to 27% were contaminated. Fungal organisms were particularly implicated, and samples collected later in treatment were at particular risk (P < 0.001). Amphotericin B (AmB) is the standard antifungal drug used on SSCC plates at a concentration of 10 mg/ml. On selective Middlebrook 7H10 plates, AmB at 30 mg/ml reduced sample contamination by 17% compared with AmB at 10 mg/ml. The relative risk of contamination using AmB at 10 mg/ml was 1.79 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.25 to 3.55). On Middlebrook 7H11 plates, a combination of AmB at 10 mg/ml and carbendazim at 50 mg/ml was associated with 10% less contamination than AmB at 30 mg/ml. The relative risk of contamination with AmB at 30 mg/ml was 1.79 (95% CI, 1.01 to 3.17). Improved antifungal activity was accompanied by a small reduction in bacillary counts, but this did not affect modeling of bacillary elimination. In conclusion, a combination of AmB and carbendazim optimized the antifungal activity of selective media for growth of TB. We recommend this method to reduce contamination rates and improve SSCC studies in African countries where the burden of TB is highest.
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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.