Summary Objective To improve tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis in prison, we evaluate the value of XpertⓇMTB/RIF Ultra assay (Xpert) as point-of-care (POC) a French prison hospital. Methods We first validated Xpert use on raw sputum at referent laboratory. Secondly, trained physicians hospital performed tests for each patient presenting TB symptoms. The results were compared with Xpert, microscopic e...

BACKGROUND Placing inpatients with presumed active pulmonary tuberculosis in respiratory isolation pending results of serial sputum acid-fast bacilli (AFB) smear microscopy is standard practice in high-income countries. However, this diagnostic strategy is slow and yields few tuberculosis diagnoses. We sought to determine if replacing microscopy with the GeneXpert MTB/RIF (Xpert) nucleic acid a...

INTRODUCTION Biomarkers are needed to monitor tuberculosis (TB) treatment and predict treatment outcomes. We evaluated the Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert) assay as a biomarker for TB treatment during and at the end of the 24 weeks therapy. METHODS Sputum from 108 HIV-negative, culture-positive pulmonary TB patients was analyzed using Xpert at time points before and during anti-TB therapy. Results were ...

The Validation of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Genotyping Tests (VALGENT) studies offer an opportunity to clinically validate HPV assays for use in primary screening for cervical cancer and also provide a framework for the comparison of analytical and type-specific performance. Through VALGENT, we assessed the performance of the cartridge-based Xpert HPV assay (Xpert HPV), which detects 14 high-r...

BACKGROUND In 2011, the Botswana National Tuberculosis Program adopted World Health Organization guidelines and introduced Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert) assay to support intensified case finding among people living with HIV enrolling in care. An evaluation was designed to assess performance under operational conditions to inform the national Xpert scale-up. METHODS Xpert was implemented from August 2...

Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert) offers rapid detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and rifampicin resistance. However, little is known about routine point-of-care (POC) use in high TB/HIV burden settings. We describe our experiences of launching Xpert as the POC, initial diagnostic for all TB suspects at a primary healthcare clinic in Johannesburg, South Africa. Noted important benefits of POC Xpert we...

BACKGROUND There is an urgent need for rapid and accurate microbiological diagnostic assay for detection of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). We assessed the diagnostic accuracy of the Xpert Clostridium difficile assay (Xpert CD) for the diagnosis of CDI. METHODS We searched PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library databases to identify studies according to predetermined criteria. STATA 13.0...

TO THE EDITOR—In the 1 April 2014 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, Sohn et al [1] evaluated the performance of the Xpert MTB/RIF assay at a pulmonary referral center in Montreal, a city with low tuberculosis incidence. The investigators found that the overall sensitivity of the test was 46%, compared with mycobacterial cultures. The article and the accompanying editorial question whether ...

We have developed a novel blood lysis-centrifugation approach for highly sensitive Mycobacterium tuberculosis detection in large volumes of blood with the Xpert MTB/RIF assay. One through 20 ml of blood was spiked with 0.25 to 10 CFU/ml of the M. tuberculosis surrogate M. bovis BCG. Multiple replicates of each sample were processed by a new lysis-centrifugation method and tested with the Xpert ...

INTRODUCTION Currently only limited data exist regarding the availability and clinical use of molecular and immunological tests for tuberculosis (TB) in the European setting. METHODS Web-based survey of Paediatric-Tuberculosis-Network-European-Trialsgroup (ptbnet) and Tuberculosis-Network-European-Trialsgroup (TBnet) members conducted June to December 2013. Both networks comprise clinicians, ...