SynthesisInternational journal of epidemiology2026
Quantifying within-household tuberculosis transmission: a systematic review and prospective cohort study.
Synthesis in International journal of epidemiology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundHousehold-based studies are commonly used to investigate tuberculosis (TB) transmission and evaluate preventive interventions. These studies typically assume that household contacts (HHCs) who develop TB disease were infected by the identified index patient. However, community-acquired infections may challenge this assumption, potentially biasing findings. Here, we evaluated the proportion of genetically linked index-HHC pairs and examined whether this proportion varied based on the TB burden in the community.
methodsWe conducted a prospective cohort study in Lima, Peru, enrolling microbiologically confirmed pulmonary TB index patients and their HHCs who were followed for 1 year. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) isolates from culture-positive index patients and HHCs underwent whole-genome sequencing (WGS). We defined index-HHC patient pairs as resulting from within-household transmission when the genetic distance between their Mtb isolates was ≤12 single nucleotide polymorphisms. To contextualize our findings, we conducted a systematic review of Mtb genotyping studies that used spoligotyping, restriction fragment length polymorphisms , mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units-variable number tandem repeats, or WGS to assess within-household TB infection transmission among index-HHC patient pairs.
resultsIn our Lima study, among 175 index-HHC patient pairs, 109 (62%) were classified as within-household transmission. The systematic review identified 22 qualifying studies from settings with TB burdens ranging from 6.7 to 845 cases per 100 000 person-years. Studies in settings with TB incidence of ≤250 per 100 000 person-years consistently reported linkage proportions of ≥61%, whereas high-burden settings exhibited greater variability.
conclusionsOur findings suggest that, among individuals exposed to TB at home, within-household transmission predominates in moderate- or low-TB-burden settings. However, its relative contribution in high-incidence settings remains unclear.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.