Prevalence and Drug Resistance of Nontuberculous Mycobacteria, Northern China, 2008–2011

To the Editor: Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM), defined as members of Mycobacterium species other than those in the M. tuberculosis complex or M. leprae, are mostly considered to be opportunistic pathogens (1). However, many NTM can and do cause disease in immune-competent hosts. Pulmonary infection by NTM can be a source of diagnostic uncertainty, especially in locations such as in China, where acid-fast staining of sputum samples is the mainstay of diagnosis for tuberculosis (2). NTM are also relatively resistant to many of the first-and second-line drugs used to treat tuberculosis , thus making accurate diagnosis and drug-susceptibility testing critical to clinical management of NTM infections (3). The medical and public health communities have been concerned about increasing prevalence of NTM infection in China, and 2 recent surveys, 1 from Shanghai and another from a rural population in Shandong Province, gave somewhat conflicting reports of the prevalence of these infections (4,5). We therefore decided to conduct a survey of NTM isolates in Beijing from the National Tuberculosis Clinical Laboratory of the Beijing Chest Hospital. We also tested isolates from specimens collected in this laboratory against an extended drug susceptibility panel to determine which drug regimens would be most useful in therapy for various NTM infections. During January 2008–December 2011, sputum samples collected from 3,714 patients attending the Beijing Chest Hospital with suspected pulmonary tuberculosis were positive for mycobacterial spp. Among the surveillance population, 92% were from northern China, including 13 provinces and the 2 major urban conurbations of Beijing and Tianjin. From our survey , the Han ethnic group accounted for 82% of patients, and 61% of total patients were from urban, rather than rural, areas. Most (59%) of the patients were male, and 40% were attending the hospital for re-treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis; mean age was 51 ± 20 years. Of these mycobacterial isolates, 95 (2.6%) were positive for NTM; NTM were identified during initial screening for resistance to p-nitroben-zoic acid. We identified the strains to species level by sequencing the internal transcribed spacer region of the 16S-23S rRNA and 16S rRNA genes (6), which is able to discriminate between even closely related species such as M. chelonae and M. abscessus (7). Of the 95 NTM isolates, 38 (40%) were M. intracellulare and 28 (29%) were M. abscessus (Table). Five additional species were also identified: M. fortuitum (8%), M. gordonae (8%), M. kansasii (7%), M. avium (5%), and M. parascrofulaceum …