Advances in tuberculosis diagnostics: the Xpert MTB/RIF assay and future prospects for a point-of-care test

• Published in: The Lancet infectious diseases Vol. 13; no. 4; pp. 349 - 361
• Main Authors: Lawn, Stephen D, Mwaba, Peter, Bates, Matthew, Piatek, Amy, Alexander, Heather, Marais, Ben J, Cuevas, Luis E, McHugh, Timothy D, Zijenah, Lynn, Kapata, Nathan, Abubakar, Ibrahim, McNerney, Ruth, Hoelscher, Michael, Memish, Ziad A, Migliori, Giovanni Battista, Kim, Peter, Maeurer, Markus, Schito, Marco, Zumla, Alimuddin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Elsevier Ltd 01.04.2013; Lancet Publishing Group; Elsevier Limited
• Subjects: AIDS-Related Opportunistic Infections - diagnosis; AIDS-Related Opportunistic Infections - microbiology; Antibiotics, Antitubercular; Bacterial diseases; Biological and medical sciences; Cost of Illness; Cost-Benefit Analysis; Drug Resistance, Bacterial; Global Health; Health Care Costs; Human bacterial diseases; Human immunodeficiency virus; Humans; Infectious Disease; Infectious diseases; Medical sciences; Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Mycobacterium tuberculosis - drug effects; Mycobacterium tuberculosis - genetics; Mycobacterium tuberculosis - isolation & purification; Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques; Point-of-Care Systems - trends; Predictive Value of Tests; Rifampin; Sputum - microbiology; Tuberculosis; Tuberculosis and atypical mycobacterial infections; Tuberculosis, Multidrug-Resistant - diagnosis; Tuberculosis, Multidrug-Resistant - drug therapy; Tuberculosis, Multidrug-Resistant - epidemiology; Tuberculosis, Multidrug-Resistant - mortality; Tuberculosis, Pulmonary - diagnosis; Tuberculosis, Pulmonary - epidemiology; Infection; Bacteriosis; Tuberculosis; Mycobacterial infection; Diagnosis

Rapid progress has been made in the development of new diagnostic assays for tuberculosis in recent years. New technologies have been developed and assessed, and are now being implemented. The Xpert MTB/RIF assay, which enables simultaneous detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) and rifampici...