Identificación de Mycobacterium bovis en pacientes con diagnóstico de tuberculosis pulmonar y extrapulmonar

In Mexico, there is an alarming increase in the number of cases of Mycobacterium bovis infection on pulmonary and extrapulmonary presentations. The lack of timely identification triggers complications and increases mortality.

To know the frequency of M. bovis infections in clinical samples of patients with tuberculosis in the mycobacteria laboratory of a reference hospital in Mexico City.

Prospective, descriptive study. Strains isolated from biological material were studied in Löwestein-Jensen and MGITI960 cultures. M. bovis was identified by amplifying the RD9 fragment with end-point polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

Eight-hundred and fifty tuberculosis-diagnosed patients were included; in 441 cases, Mycobacterium tuberculosis was confirmed by positive culture (250 pulmonary, 65 ganglionic, 39 renal, 34 meningeal, 25 miliary, 14 pleural, 8 peritoneal, 4 bone and 2 pericardial cases). Forty-eight strains (10.8%) were typified as M. bovis by amplification of the RD9 fragment with end-point PCR.

M. bovis is not currently thought of a causative agent of tuberculosis, which could be the cause of pharmacological treatment failure. In this study, the main extrapulmonary form was observed to be cervical lymphadenopathy.