Trinh Thi Bich Tram, Le Pham Tien Trieu, Le Thanh Hoang Nhat, Do Dang Anh Thu, Nguyen Le Quang, Nguyen Duc Bang, Tran Thi Hong Chau, Guy E Thwaites, Timothy M Walker, Vu Thi Ngoc Ha, Nguyen Thuy Thuong Thuong
Mortality from tuberculous meningitis (TBM) remains around 30%, with most deaths occurring within 2 months of starting treatment. Mortality from drug-resistant strains is higher still, making early detection of drug resistance (DR) essential. Targeted next-generation sequencing (tNGS) produces high read depths, allowing the detection of DR-associated alleles with low frequencies. We applied Deeplex Myc-TB-a tNGS assay-to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from 72 adults with microbiologically confirmed TBM and compared its genomic drug susceptibility predictions to a composite reference standard of phenotypic susceptibility testing (pDST) and whole genome sequencing, as well as to clinical outcomes...
March 11, 2024: Journal of Clinical Microbiology