ArticleInternational journal of molecular sciences2026
Evaluating the Performance of Sputum-Based Targeted Sequencing Against Mycobacterial Whole-Genome Sequencing in Predicting Tuberculosis Drug Resistance.
Article in International journal of molecular sciences, 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
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Direct sputum targeted next-generation sequencing (tNGS) offers rapid resistance profiling without culture, but its concordance with isolate-based whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and phenotypic drug susceptibility testing (pDST) remains unclear. We compared tNGS (direct sputum) and WGS (cultured isolates) for 14 drugs' resistance prediction in 68 culture-positive tuberculosis specimens, using pDST as reference. Performance for lineage concordance was also assessed. tNGS showed the highest rifampicin (RIF) sensitivity (90.9%) but the lowest specificity (65.2%); WGS achieved the best overall agreement (86.8%). For isoniazid, tNGS sensitivity was 82.6% vs. WGS 78.3%, but WGS specificity was higher (91.1% vs. 75.6%). tNGS outperformed WGS for ethambutol (EMB) sensitivity (80.0% vs. 40.0%). Both methods performed poorly for pyrazinamide (PZA) (agreement ~40%). Among 68 specimens, 51.5% had fully concordant resistance profiles; tNGS-only variants outnumbered WGS-only variants 2:1. Crucially, tNGS and WGS on the same 24 cultured isolates yielded identical results, proving that discrepancies arise from culture-driven clonal selection, not technical differences. Direct sputum tNGS suggests broader within-host resistance diversity that may be missed by culture, whereas WGS offers superior specificity. The two methods are complementary, with culture bias being the primary source of discordance.
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.