Volume 16, Number 10—October 2010
CME ACTIVITY - Research
Changing Epidemiology of Pulmonary Nontuberculous Mycobacteria Infections
Rachel M. Thomson
on behalf of the NTM working group at the Queensland TB Control CentreQueensland Mycobacterial Reference Laboratory
on behalf of the NTM working group at the Queensland TB Control CentreQueensland Mycobacterial Reference Laboratory
Table 1
Comparison of numbers of nontuberculous mycobacteria isolates in 1999 and 2005, Queensland, Australia*
| Isolates | No. isolates (rate/100,000 population; 95% CI) |
p value | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | 2005 | ||
| Total patient isolates | 517† (14.8; 13.4–14.9) | 631‡ (15.8; 14.3–16.9) | NS |
| Pulmonary | 382 (10.9; 9.9–12.1) | 488 (12.2; 11.1–13.3) | NS |
| Nonpulmonary |
135 (3.9; 3.4–4.2) |
143 (3.6; 3.1–4.0) |
NS |
| Speciated isolates | 318 (9.1; 8.2–10.2) | 544 (13.6; 12.3–14.7) | <0.0000001 |
| Pulmonary | 192 (5.5; 4.5–6.6) | 413 (10.2; 9.4–11.5) | <0.0000001 |
| Nonpulmonary | 119 (3.4; 3.0–3.8) | 131 (3.3; 2.9–3.7) | NS |
*CI, confidence interval; NS, not significant. Population of Queensland in 1999, 3.5 million; in 2005, 4 million.
†In 1999, more smear-negative, single-positive unspeciated isolates were captured than usual, inflating these numbers.
‡The calculated number of positive isolates in 2005 was 22.1/100,000 population, based on the observed increase in speciated isolates, assuming the proportion of isolates not referred for speciation remained constant.
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