Performance evaluation of three commercial molecular assays for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from clinical specimens in a high TB-HIV-burden setting

Table 1 Comparison of operational characteristics the three molecular assays

	Anyplex™ plus MTB/NTM/DR-TB	GenoType MTBDRplus version 2.0	Xpert® MTB/RIF
Principle	Two-step multiplex real time PCR	Reverse hybridisation	Hemi-nested real-time PCR
End result	MTBC, NTM, RIF, INH	MTBC, RIF, INH	MTBC, RIF
Level of complexity	High	High	Low
Turn-around-time (including DNA extraction)	3.5 h	5.35 h	2 h
Result interpretation	Automated	Manual^a	Automated
Throughput per run	96	48	16^b
Laboratory infrastructure	Open system requiring three separate work areas.	Open system requiring three separate work areas.	Closed system, bench top within a temperature controlled area

^aGenoscan required for automated interpretation of results but at an additional cost
^bDepends on which module you have (e.g. 4, 16, or 48)

ISSN: 1471-2334