ArticleMicrobiology spectrum2025
Contamination rates in serially sampled sputum specimens obtained during tuberculosis treatment to capture culture conversion.
Article in Microbiology spectrum, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Development and evaluation of a multiplex PCR for simultaneous detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, Mycobacterium avium complex, and Burkholderia pseudomallei in clinical specimens.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2026Article
- Dynamics of IFN-γ, IL-2, and IL-6 during early tuberculosis treatment: significant longitudinal changes but limited value as standalone discriminators of treatment status.BMC microbiology · 2026Article
- Do no harm - re-evaluating the risks of overtreatment in community-wide tuberculosis screening.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Sputum cultures are the gold standard for tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis and treatment monitoring. However, cultures in MGIT liquid media are susceptible to microbial contamination, often rendering them uninterpretable. Research has shown that maintaining strict cold chains and supervised sample collection can reduce contamination rates, but few longitudinal studies with weekly sampling have explored this. Here, we evaluated whether (i) the time between specimen collection and laboratory processing and (ii) unsupervised specimen collection are associated with contamination rates. Additionally, we estimated contamination rates over the first 12 weeks of treatment and assessed the clinical and behavioral predictors of contamination. We collected 3,155 sputum specimens from 301 participants undergoing TB treatment. Contamination was lowest (12.3%) at treatment initiation, increased over the first few weeks, and stabilized around 30% from week 8 onwards. Samples collected without supervision were more likely to be contaminated at treatment initiation (
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