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[Introduction] Childhood pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) remains a diagnostic challenge. This study aimed to evaluate the performance of Xpert Ultra for the diagnosis of pulmonary TB in children in a low TB prevalence setting., [Methods] Prospective, multicentre, diagnostic accuracy study. Children with clinical or radiological suspicion of pulmonary TB were recruited at 11 paediatric units in Spain. Up to three gastric or sputum specimens were taken on 3 consecutive days, and analysed by Xpert MTB/RIF, Xpert Ultra and culture in parallel., [Results] 86 children were included (median age 4.9 years, IQR 2.0–10.0; 51.2% male). The final diagnosis was pulmonary TB in 75 patients (87.2%); 33 (44.0%) were microbiologically confirmed. A total of 219 specimens, comprising gastric aspirates (n=194; 88.6%) and sputum specimens (n=25; 11.4%), were analysed. Using culture as reference standard and comparing individual specimens, the sensitivity was 37.8% (14/37) for Xpert MTB/RIF and 81.1% (30/37) for Xpert Ultra (p, [Conclusions] In children with pulmonary TB in a low burden setting, Xpert Ultra has significantly higher sensitivity than the previous generation of Xpert assay and only marginally lower specificity. Therefore, in children undergoing evaluation for suspected pulmonary TB, Xpert Ultra should be used in preference to Xpert MTB/RIF whenever possible., This study did not receive any project-specific funding. DA-A was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Health – Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) and cofunded by the European Union (FEDER) (Contrato Río Hortega CM18/00100). AN-J was supported by 'Subvencions per a la Intensificació de Facultatius Especialistes' (Departament de Salut de la Generalitat de Catalunya, Programa PERIS 2016-2020) (SLT008/18/00193). DBG was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation – Instituto de Salud Carlos III and Fondos FEDER by 'Contratos para la intensificación de la actividad investigadora en el Sistema Nacional de Salud, 2020 (INT20/00086)'. BS-G was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Health – Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) and cofunded by the European Union (FEDER) (Contrato Juan Rodés JR16/00036).

Nontuberculous mycobacteria include 198 mycobacterial species. Among these, Mycobacteroides abscessus is a rapidly growing mycobacteria that causes lung and skin infections. M. abscessus lung infections are difficult to treat due to the high levels of resistance to several classes of antibiotics. The current treatment is based on combining at least two or three antibiotics. However, treatment outcomes remain very poor. The objective was to compare the in vitro activity of amikacin, tigecycline, imipenem, and clarithromycin, alone and in two different three-drug combinations (amikacin/tigecycline/imipenem and amikacin/tigecycline/clarithromycin) against seven M. abscessus subsp. abscessus clinical isolates using the time-kill assay. The two combinations showed greater activity than the antibiotics tested individually. Even though both combinations showed similar activity as well as no antagonistic activity, the combination including imipenem could not be an alternative treatment against M. abscessus subsp. abscessus lung infections caused by clarithromycin susceptible isolates. However, this combination could be considered against clarithromycin resistant isolates. Future studies are necessary to confirm this hypothesis This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) ‘A way to achieve Europe’, the Spanish Ministry of Health (grant no. PI16/01047), Planes Nacionales de I+D+i 2008–2011/2013–2016 and Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Subdirección General de Redes y Centros de Investigación Cooperativa, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spanish Network for Research in Infectious Diseases (REIPI) (RD16/ 0016/0010) co‐financed by European Development Regional Fund (ERDF) “A way to achieve Europe” and operative program Intelligent Growth 2014–2020. This study was also supported by grant 2017SGR0809 from the Departament d’Universitats, Recerca i Societat de la Informació de la Generalitat de Catalunya and by a grant from Fundació La Marató de TV3 (grant no. 201816-10). EP-B received a grant from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Ajut de Personal Investigador en Formació (APIF-UB)

The main objective of this study was to compare in vitro activities of a novel fluoroquinolone (FQ), UB-8902, with ofloxacin (OFX), levofloxacin (LFX), and moxifloxacin (MOX) against Mycobacterium ...

A carbapenem-resistant Escherichia coli isolate (sequence type 448 [ST448]) was recovered from a urine culture of a female patient with no recent record of traveling. PCR screening identified the presence of bla NDM-5 , bla TEM-1 , bla OXA-1 , bla CMY-42 , and rmtB. bla NDM-5 was carried in a conjugative IncFII-type plasmid (90 kb) together with bla TEM-1 and rmtB . The genetic environment of bla NDM-5 showed a structure similar to those of pMC-NDM and pGUE-NDM, identified in Poland and France in E. coli of African and Indian origin, respectively.

ObjectivesConventional microbiological procedures for the isolation of bacteria from biological fluids consist of culture on solid media and enrichment broth. However, these methods can delay the microbiological identification for up to 4 days. The aim of this study was to evaluate the analytical performance of Sysmex UF500i (Sysmex, Kobe, Japan) as a screening method for the detection of bacteria in different biological fluids in comparison with direct Gram staining and the conventional culture on solid media and enrichment broth.MethodsA total of 479 biological fluid samples were included in the study (180 ascitic, 131 amniotic, 56 synovial, 40 cerebrospinal, 36 pleural, 24 peritoneal, 9 bile and 3 pericardial fluids). All samples were processed by conventional culture methods and analyzed by flow cytometry. Direct Gram staining was performed in 339 samples. The amount of growth on culture was recorded for positive samples.ResultsBacterial and white blood cell count by flow cytometry was significantly higher among culture positive samples and samples with a positive direct Gram stain compared to culture negative samples. Bacterial count directly correlated with the amount of growth on culture (Kruskall-Wallis H χ2(3) = 11.577, p = 0.009). The best specificity (95%) for bacterial count to predict culture positivity was achieved applying a cut-off value of 240 bacteria/μL.ConclusionsBacterial and white blood cell counts obtained with flow cytometry correlate with culture results in biological fluids. Bacterial count can be used as a complementary method along with the direct Gram stain to promptly detect positive samples and perform other diagnostic techniques in order to accelerate the bacterial detection and identification.