Microbial analysis of excess sputum samples
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Molecular and culture analysis of excess sputum samples from patients with chronic airways diseases.
IRAS ID
222452
Contact name
Michael Tunney
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Queen's University Belfast
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Summary of Research
Patients with chronic respiratory conditions such as Cystic Fibrosis (CF), bronchiectasis (BE) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) suffer from frequent pulmonary infections also called exacerbations. Pulmonary infections are believed to be caused mainly by a change in the community of bacteria that normally reside in the airways.
In order to treat patients with the correct antibiotics, clinical laboratories use culture-dependent techniques to grow and identify the type and number of bacteria found in sputum samples. However, these techniques are laborious and can take days to generate results. In addition, some bacteria are difficult to grow outside the body using these methods. New molecular detection techniques rely on the isolation of bacterial DNA which is extracted from clinical samples and overcomes many of the problems associated with conventional culture techniques. As a result, the number and type of bacteria present in an individual sputum sample can be more easily and quickly identified.
Pulmonary infections are often treated with antibiotics. Response to treatment is monitored via the use of inflammatory biomarkers found in the sputum. New molecular techniques have the potential to help identify novel biomarkers for monitoring treatment response and disease progression. In addition, they may also help to predict when a pulmonary infection is going to occur.
Patients who present at the BHSCT either as an inpatient or at outpatient clinics will be asked to provide a sputum sample for routine culture and sensitivity testing which is sent to the Microbiology Laboratory for analysis. Only surplus sputum will be collected for use in this study. No clinical data will be collected.
These samples will be used for assay optimization and validation with the potential to gain an insight into the number and type of bacteria that commonly line the airways of patients with chronic respiratory conditions. It may also provide a greater insight into the cause of pulmonary infections and monitoring response to antibiotic treatment.Summary of Results
: Growing bugs in the laboratory is the main method currently used to determine what bugs are causing infection in the airways of people with a range of respiratory diseases such as cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis. These methods are slow and time-consuming. Methods which isolate genetic material from these bugs could potentially improve the accuracy and speed at which bugs are detected. In this study, sputum samples from 41 patients receiving inpatient or outpatient physiotherapy at the Belfast City Hospital, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust were collected. These samples were used to test the accuracy of these new molecular methods in identifying and quantifying bugs in sputum samples.REC name
HSC REC A
REC reference
18/NI/0112
Date of REC Opinion
12 Jun 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion