Extract
Efforts to curb the tuberculosis (TB) pandemic remain hindered by a lack of objective measures to quantify disease severity and track treatment success that are valid in both HIV-1-infected and -uninfected TB patients. Ralph et al. [1] developed a promising radiographic scoring system, with baseline scores being predictive of sputum smear conversion at 2 months, but it is reliant on skilled readers and has not been systematically validated in predominantly HIV-infected study populations with varying CD4 counts. Superior to conventional chest radiography, high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) is a highly sensitive tool to track endobronchial TB disease extent [2].
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A high-resolution CT based, semi-automated radiographic score correlates with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) bacterial burden, peripheral monocyte count and the phenotypic profile of Mtb-specific CD4 T-cells, irrespective of HIV status https://bit.ly/44do4V6
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the study participants as well as Lorraine Brydon and her dedicated team of radiographers at Morton and Partners at Vincent Pallotti Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa.
Footnotes
Author contributions: E. du Bruyn, C. Riou, R.J. Wilkinson and B.W. Allwood designed the study. E. du Bruyn recruited the study participants. E. du Bruyn and C. Riou performed the whole blood assay. E. du Bruyn and C. Riou performed the flow experiments, data analysis and interpretation. G.H.J. Kim, I. da Costa, J. Lee and J. Goldin derived the TB-CAD score, performed the quantitative HRCT analysis and curated the radiographic data. R.J. Wilkinson, A. Sher and C. Riou obtained funding to support the project. C. Riou and E. du Bruyn wrote the manuscript with all authors contributing to providing critical feedback. A detailed method for the generation for the TB-CAD score can be obtained by contacting directly J. Goldin (jgoldin@mednet.ucla.edu) or G.H.J. Kim (gracekim@mednet.ucla.edu).
Conflict of interest: The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.
Support statement: This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (U01AI115940 to R.J. Wilkinson, and R21AI148027 to C. Riou). R.J. Wilkinson is supported by the Francis Crick Institute, which receives funds from Cancer Research UK (FC00110218), the Wellcome trust (FC00110218) and the UK Medical Research Council (FC00110218). R.J. Wilkinson is also supported by Wellcome (203135), and the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) (RIA2017T-2004). C. Riou is supported by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) programme supported under the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme (TMA2017SF-1951/TB-Spec). Funding information for this article has been deposited with the Crossref Funder Registry.
- Received April 9, 2023.
- Accepted July 4, 2023.
- Copyright ©The authors 2023. For reproduction rights and permissions contact permissions{at}ersnet.org
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