Interpreting very low Mycobacterium tuberculosis detected on Xpert Mycobacterium tuberculosis/rifampicin

Abstract

The development and rollout of the Xpert® Mycobacterium tuberculosis/rifampicin assay for the GeneXpert platform is considered an important breakthrough in the fight against tuberculosis. Xpert though robust is known to have issues that occur with very low load of tuberculosis detection, wherein it is recommended to confirm resistance if resistance is not suspected using another genotypic test.

Keywords

• cartridge-based nucleic acid amplification test
• pyrosequencing
• rpob
• tuberculosis
• xpert mycobacterium tuberculosis/rifampin