Fig 1.
Patient numbers for oral swab study.
Patients were enrolled in a nested strategy for MTB detection by qPCR (50 Xpert positive individuals and 53 Xpert negative individuals) or mycobacterial culture (141 Xpert positive individuals). All Xpert positive individuals from the qPCR arm were included in the culture arm.
Fig 2.
Rapid repeat sampling of individual participants.
Ten samples were collected in rapid succession from the tongue dorsa of four healthy volunteers, and tested by conserved bacterial rDNA qPCR. Each individual is represented by a distinct type of symbol.
Fig 3.
Comparison of total bacterial biomass collected from tongue dorsa by two swab products.
Five samples were collected from 3 healthy volunteers using Puritan Purflock swabs or Copan FLOQSwabs. Bacterial biomass was quantified by qPCR using primers against a conserved bacterial rDNA locus. Bars represent mean Cq +/- standard deviation. Significance calculated using paired t-test (p = 0.0064).
Table 1.
Socio-demographic characteristics and other patient information.
Table 2.
Clinical characteristic of patients.
Table 3.
Sensitivity and specificity of OSA relative to sputum GeneXpert Ultra and culture.
Table 4.
Association between OSA signal strength and HIV co-infection among patients with positive tongue swabs.
Table 5.
Tuberculosis culture positivity among tongue swab samples from Xpert positive individuals.
Table 6.
Correlation between swab culture and smear microscopy grade or GeneXpert semiquantitative result.