Representativeness of Tuberculosis Genotyping Surveillance in the United States, 2009-2010.

Representativeness of Tuberculosis Genotyping Surveillance in the United States, 2009-2010. Public Health Rep. 2015 Nov-Dec;130(6):596-601 Authors: Shak EB, France AM, Cowan L, Starks AM, Grant J Abstract Genotyping of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates contributes to tuberculosis (TB) control through detection of possible outbreaks. However, 20% of U.S. cases do not have an isolate for testing, and 10% of cases with isolates do not have a genotype reported. TB outbreaks in populations with incomplete genotyping data might be missed by genotyping-based outbreak detection. Therefore, we assessed the representativeness of TB genotyping data by comparing characteristics of cases reported during January 1, 2009-December 31, 2010, that had a genotype result with those cases that did not. Of 22,476 cases, 14,922 (66%) had a genotype result. Cases without genotype results were more likely to be patients <19 years of age, with unknown HIV status, of female sex, U.S.-born, and with no recent history of homelessness or substance abuse. Although cases with a genotype result are largely representative of all reported U.S. TB cases, outbreak detection methods that rely solely on genotyping data may underestimate TB transmission among certain groups. PMID: 26556930 [PubMed - in process]
Source: Public Health Reports - Category: Global & Universal Tags: Public Health Rep Source Type: research