Myco TB

Proof of principle study: Detecting Mycobacterium tuberculosis using a highly sensitive nucleic acid amplification based test on stool samples obtained by rectal swabbing 

Summary

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infection which most commonly affects the lungs and causes many deaths across the world. Diagnosing TB is difficult, and some patients may require multiple expensive and unpleasant investigations. This can result in delays to starting treatment for TB, which can negatively affect their health, or sometimes patients receive the incorrect treatment because a diagnosis has not been confirmed. Current tests for TB may not give results for several weeks and don't pick up all cases. There is a need for better tests to help diagnosis of TB.
Nucleic Acid Amplification Tests (NAATs) are tests used to diagnose many infections, including TB. NAATs are fast and work well. People with TB often cough up secretions (sputum) and these can be tested for TB by NAATs and other tests, but when patients cannot produce sputum then other samples, such as stool or rectal swabs, may be easier to obtain and could be tested for TB too.
A new type of NAAT test has been developed to detect TB in animal faeces. We want to investigate how well this new test works for diagnosing TB in humans. Only a small amount of faecal material is needed, therefore samples will be collected by patients with TB using a rectal swab to see whether we can detect TB in their stool.