Rationale: The Xpert MTB/RIF is an automated molecular test for Mycobacterium tuberculosis that estimates bacterial burden by measuring the threshold-cycle (Ct) of its M. tuberculosis-specific real-time polymerase chain reaction. Bacterial burden is an important biomarker for disease severity, infection control risk, and response to therapy. Objectives: Evaluate bacterial load quantitation by Xpert MTB/RIF compared with conventional quantitative methods. Methods: Xpert MTB/RIF results were compared with smear-microscopy, semiquantiative solid culture, and time-to-detection in liquid culture for 741 patients and 2,008 samples tested in a multisite clinical trial. An internal control real-time polymerase chain reaction was evaluated for its ability to identify inaccurate quantitative Xpert MTB/RIF results. Measurements and Main Results: Assays with an internal control Ct greater than 34 were likely to be inaccurately quantitated; this represented 15% of M. tuberculosis-positive tests. Excluding these, decreasing M. tuberculosis Ct was associated with increasing smear microscopy grade for smears of concentrated sputum pellets (r s ¼ 20.77) and directly from sputum (r s ¼ 20.71). A Ct cutoff of approximately 27.7 best predicted smear-positive status. The association between M. tuberculosis Ct and time-to-detection in liquid culture (r s ¼ 0.68) and semiquantitative colony counts (r s ¼ 20.56) was weaker than smear. Tests of paired same-patient sputum showed that highviscosity sputum samples contained 332 more M. tuberculosis than nonviscous samples. Comparisons between the grade of the acid-fast bacilli smear and Xpert MTB/RIF quantitative data across study sites enabled us to identify a site outlier in microscopy. Conclusions: Xpert MTB/RIF quantitation offers a new, standardized approach to measuring bacterial burden in the sputum of patients with tuberculosis.Keywords: tuberculosis; molecular diagnostics; diagnostic techniques and procedures; diagnosis; clinical trial Measurements of bacterial load have long played an important role in tuberculosis diagnostics. Semiquantitative or quantitative measures of the number of Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacilli present within a clinical sample have been clinically useful for determining disease severity, assessing transmission risk, or monitoring therapy (1-3). Quantitative readouts have also aided in the investigation of potentially false-positive results (4-6).The Xpert MTB/RIF (Cepheid, Sunnyvale, CA) assay simultaneously detects the presence of M. tuberculosis and its susceptibility to the important first-line drug rifampin in less than 2 hours (7). The assay is contained in a small plastic cartridge, and it is run on the GeneXpert platform (Cepheid), a diagnostic The Xpert MTB/RIF assay is a rapid diagnostic test for tuberculosis and rifampin resistance. A number of studies have examined the sensitivity and specificity of the assay in various clinical settings and with various sample types. The test can also provide an estimate of the bacterial load present in the s...

BackgroundThe objective of this study was to document the clinical, laboratory and genetic features of galactosemia in patients from the Cape Town metropolitan region.MethodsDiagnoses were based on thin layer chromatography for galactosuria/galactosemia and assays of erythrocyte galactose-1-phosphate uridyltransferase (GALT) and galactokinase activities. Patients were screened for the common S135L and Q188R transferase gene mutations, using PCR-based assays. Screening for the S135L mutation in black newborns was used to estimate the carrier rate for galactosemia in black South Africans.ResultsA positive diagnosis of galactosemia was made in 17 patients between the years 1980 to 2001. All had very low or absent galactose-1-phosphate uridyltransferase (GALT) activity, and normal galactokinase levels. The mean age at diagnosis was 5.1 months (range 4 days to 6.5 months). A review of 9 patients showed that hepatomegaly (9/9), and splenomegaly, failure to thrive, developmental delay, bilateral cataracts (6/9) were the most frequent features at diagnosis. Six had conjugated hyperbilirubinemia. Four experienced invasive E. coli infection before diagnosis. Ten patients were submitted to DNA analysis. All 4 black patients and 2 of mixed extraction were homozygous for the S135L allele, while all 3 white patients were homozygous for the Q188R allele. The remaining patient of mixed extraction was heterozygous for the Q188R allele. The estimated carrier frequency of the S135L mutation in 725 healthy black newborns was 1/60.ConclusionsIn the absence of newborn screening the delay in diagnosis is most often unacceptably long. Also, carrier frequency data predict a galactosemia incidence of approximately 1/14 400 for black newborns in the Cape Metropole, which is much higher than the current detection rate. It is thus likely that many patients go undetected.

It is not known whether the apolipoprotein E (ApoE) ε4 allelic variant is associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated dementia (HAD) in a South African population, where HIV clade C is predominant. ApoE genotyping was performed on 144 participants in a larger study of HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND). There was a lower frequency of the ε2 and ε3 alleles in the HIV-positive group, compared to a group of 300 community-based newborn infants. There were no differences in ApoE genotype across different categories of HAND. The ε4 allelic variant was less common in individuals with HAD than in those without HAD. These findings suggest that the ε4 allelic variant in HIV-positive individuals is not associated with the development of HAD in Southern Africa.