GL17
Global trends of pulmonary infections with nontuberculous mycobacteria
V N Dahl(1,2,3)
1:Department of Infectious Diseases, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark; 2:Center for Global Health, Aarhus University (GloHAU), Aarhus, Denmark; 3:International Reference Laboratory of Mycobacteriology, Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, Denmark
Non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) may cause progressive pulmonary disease (NTM-PD), especially in patients with underlying structural lung damage. NTM have been reported increasingly worldwide, such as in population-based data from North America, Europe and East Asian. Smaller single-center studies have also supported increasing trends of NTM pulmonary infection among patients considered of tuberculosis (TB) in TB high endemic countries.
In this presentation, a recent systematic review on the global trends of NTM pulmonary infection will be presented and global trends of NTM will be discussed. Finally, population-based data from Denmark through 31 years will be presented.
Current NTM data seem to indicate clear increasing trends in most countries and regions, at least for absolute numbers of infection, but also for relative numbers (i.e., when taking population sizes into account). When evaluating trends, access to and quality of diagnostics, differences among age groups, species, incidence vs. prevalence, disease manifestation and comorbidities, among others, should be taken into account, and may explain some of the observed geographical differences.