Chest
Original ResearchClinical Significance of Nontuberculous Mycobacteria Isolated From Respiratory Specimens in Korea
Section snippets
Study Subjects
All consecutive isolates from a mycobacterial laboratory at the Samsung Medical Center (a 1,250-bed tertiary referral hospital in Seoul, South Korea) during the 2-year period from January 2002 to December 2003 were collected and analyzed. All identified NTM isolates were considered to be significant, with the exception of Mycobacterium gordonae, a well-known environmental contaminant.31314 Patients with culture findings positive for M gordonae were included in the study only if multiple
Frequency of NTM Isolates
From 2002 to 2003, cultures of 1,548 respiratory specimens from 794 patients were found to be positive for NTM. The source of the isolate was sputum (n = 1,383, 89%), bronchial wash (n = 139, 9%), or lung tissue (n = 26, 2%). The mean age of the 794 patients was 56 ± 15 years (± SD). In 1,548 NTM isolates, the most frequently isolated organisms were Mycobacterium avium complex (n = 491, 32%), Mycobacterium abscessus (n = 442, 29%), and Mycobacterium fortuitum complex (n = 268, 17%) [Table 1].
Discussion
NTMs were first observed shortly after the discovery by Koch of the tubercle bacillus3 and were believed to represent environmental contamination or colonization; it was not until the 1950s that NTM were identified as potential pathogens. Since that time, these organisms have been implicated in an increasingly large proportion of pulmonary infections throughout the world, in both immunocompetent and immunocompromised hosts.1718192021 The reasons for this increasing rate of NTM lung disease are
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We thank Eun-Mi Park, Shin-Hye Lee, and Eun Joo Kim for technical assistance.
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This work was supported by grant R11–2002-103 from the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation.