In-vitro antimycobacterial drug susceptibility testing of non-tubercular mycobacteria by tetrazolium microplate assay

Abstract

Background: Non-tubercular mycobacteria (NTM) has not been given due attention till the recent epidemic of HIV. This has led to increasing interest of health care workers in their biology, epidemiology and drug resistance. However, timely detection and drug susceptibility profiling of NTM isolates are always difficult in resource poor settings like India. Furthermore, no standardized methodology or guidelines are available to reproduce the results with clinical concordance.

Scaling up anti-mycobacterial drug susceptibility testing services in India: It is high time

“…In our setting we have developed a similar but more simpliÞ ed and quantitative tetrazolium microplate assay (TEMA) for determining MICs of streptomycin (STR), rifampicin (RIF), ethambutol (ETH), ciproß oxacin (CIP), oß oxacin (OFL), azithromycin (ATH) and clarithromycin (CLA) against clinical isolate of NTM. [5] The microplate assay is also more useful for screening more number of strains in a single plate. However, the test should be done only in level-III bio-safety laboratories because of higher risk of occupational exposure.…”

“…One is of course the development of drug resistance, however, an equally important fact which is not given due importance is the occurrence of non-tubercular mycobacterial (NTM) aetiology of the disease and co-infection of more than one clones of M. tuberculosis or co-infection of NTM with M. tuberculosis. [5] In a recent study, carried out at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, 17 (30.9%) out of 55 clinically suspected MDR strains were Þ nally identiÞ ed as non-tubercular mycobacteria, which have intrinsic resistance to the standard antitubercular drugs. [6] Need for Anti-mycobacterial Drug Susceptibility Testing Mycobacterial culture isolation and drug susceptibility testing (DST) is an urgent need of the day.…”

“…[5] In a recent study, carried out at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, 17 (30.9%) out of 55 clinically suspected MDR strains were Þ nally identiÞ ed as non-tubercular mycobacteria, which have intrinsic resistance to the standard antitubercular drugs. [6] Need for Anti-mycobacterial Drug Susceptibility Testing Mycobacterial culture isolation and drug susceptibility testing (DST) is an urgent need of the day. It is felt that the routine sputum culture and DST is the most effective prerequisite tool to manage tuberculosis, in particular MDR cases.…”

“…Drug-susceptibility testing is widely used as a tool for the selection of effective treatment regimens (particularly multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis), as well as for evaluation of programme efÞ ciency and development of strategies to cope with the problem of drug-resistant tuberculosis. [1,2,6] …”

Screening of some Cameroonian Medicinal Plants against Bacterial and Yeasts involved in Gastrointestinal Disorders

“…Thiazolyl blue tetrazolium bromide (TBTB, Sigma-Aldrich) was used as microbial growth indicator (Gomez-Flores et al, 1995;Sankar et al, 2008).…”