North London TB Journal Club

Despite significant progress in the global fight against TB, there are no major game changers on the horizon to take the world towards TB elimination. A safe and effective vaccine would definitely be one. Is the M72/AS01E vaccine candidate that missing component? The Gates Foundation certainly think so, as the Gates MRI has obtained the licence to develop it further from GSK. Join us to review the evidence behind this exciting dream.

Please join us at MSF on 19th February, 2020, to discuss the NEJM paper findings on this Vaccine. Full details can be found on the Upcoming Events Page.

 Join us at LSHTM on November 27th to discuss the following paper. Full details can be found on the ‘Upcoming Events’ page.

Marks et al. performed a cluster-randomized, controlled trial in a province in Vietnam, to compared the effectiveness of ACF and PCF for reducing the prevalence of tuberculosis. Prevalence for persons 15 years of age or older reduced in both arms but there was a greater reduction in the intervention arm. Intriguingly, there was no significant difference in  prevalence of tuberculosis infection in children aged 5 at the end of the trial. This trial makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate on whether ACF is an effective tool for decreasing TB prevalence and transmission.

North London TB JC and UCL-Tb look forward to welcoming you to October’s JC, where we will discuss the recent publication in Nature, IFN-γ-independent immune markers of Mycobacterium tuberculosis exposure – Lu et al, Nature Medicine 2019

Synopsis: In this paper, Lu and colleagues report detailed investigation of a Ugandan cohort highly exposed to M. tuberculosis, but who repeatedly test negative using conventional latent TB diagnostics. Intriguingly, they find that these individuals demonstrate interferon gamma-independent adaptive responses to M. tb, in the form of both T cell and antibody responses. These findings challenge the notion of innate clearance, with wide ranging implications for latent TB and vaccine efficacy studies.

Full details can be found on the ‘Up Coming Events Page’

September Journal Club at the MRC CTU : “A patient-level pooled analysis of treatment shortening regimens for drug-susceptible pulmonary tuberculosis” – Imperial et al, Nature Medicine, November 2018

Three recent trials using 4-month, moxifloxacin containing regimens failed to show non-inferiority in comparison to 6 months of standard HRZE therapy in patients with smear positive, drug sensitive tuberculosis. In this paper Imperial and colleagues re-analysed data from 3,405 participants in these trials to identify populations eligible for 4-month treatment, define phenotypes that are hard to treat and evaluate the impact of adherence and dosing strategy on outcomes.

Please join us at the MRC CTU for a critical discussion of this paper and debate around whether it is time to reconsider the one-size fits all approach to TB management in favour of a stratified medicine approach.

Click here for full details of the event

North London TB Journal Club is on summer break in August 2019. However, we will be back in September 2019, with a new schedule for the coming year. Details to follow soon.

We say goodbye and good luck in the future to Dr Naomi Walker, who has worked hard to organise this years events and welcome Dr Robin Basu Roy, who will join Dr Oshani Dissanayake in organising the journal clubs for the Academic year 2019-20.

In the meantime, you may be interested in some of the following:

• The London Advanced Tb Course
• Listen to the LSHTM Vaccine Centre podcasts on TB
• Catch up on World Tb Day, held in March 2019

The North London TB Journal Club continues to host monthly meeting across our regular sites. A full calendar will be available for the Academic year of 2018-2019

Please Click on the link or go to the ‘upcoming events‘ page, for full details of all upcoming events.

We look forward to meeting you all in October!

For further information, queries or enquiries regarding joining our mailing list please see ‘contact ‘ page of the website.

Paper: Shen et al. Recurrent tuberculosis in an urban area in China: Relapse or exogenous reinfection? Tuberculosis 2017; 103: 97-104 [available here].

Presenter: Lara Gosce, Institute for Global Health, UCL

Chair: Tom Yates, Institute for Global Health, UCL

Time: 1-2pm, Friday 24 February 2017

Venue: Room 2.18, Chadwick Building, UCL [map here]

Please join us this month to discuss a paper on TB recurrence in Shanghai, focusing on the relative contributions made by relapse versus exogenous reinfection. How do we tease these apart? Should China prioritise efforts to improve treatment adherence or to interrupt transmission? All welcome.

Time: 4-5pm on Wednesday 25 January 2017

Venue: Room 2.18, Chadwick Building, University College London [map here]

Speaker: Giovanni Satta

Chair: Tim McHugh

Papers:

Casali N, Broda A, Harris SR, Parkhill J, Brown T, Drobniewski F. Whole Genome Sequence Analysis of a Large Isoniazid-Resistant Tuberculosis Outbreak in London: A Retrospective Observational Study. PLoS Med 2016; 13(10): e1002137. [available here]

Satta G, Witney AA, Shorten RJ, Karlikowska M, Lipman M, McHugh TD. Genetic variation in Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from a London outbreak associated with isoniazid resistance. BMC Med 2016; 14(1): 117. [available here]

Happy New Year! This month, North London TB Journal Club will discuss two recent papers on the London isoniazid resistant TB outbreak. We look forward to seeing you there – all welcome.

Presenter: Julie Demaret

Chair: Adrian Martineau

Time: 4-5pm, Thursday 24 November 2016

Venue: Room 1.32, Garrod Building, Turner Street, E1 2AD [map here]

Paper: Malherbe et al. Persisting positron emission tomography lesion activity and Mycobacterium tuberculosis mRNA after tuberculosis cure. Nat Med 2016; 22(10): 1094-1100. [available here]

Please join us to discuss an interesting paper exploring radiological and molecular correlates of TB cure. What does cure mean? Are all bacilli killed? How might the way we define treatment response influence the way we test new drugs and regimens against Mycobacterium tuberculosis?

This month, we will be discussing a paper that attempts to estimate the number of TB cases being managed in the private sector in India.

Paper: Arinaminpathy et al. The number of privately treated tuberculosis cases in India: an estimation from drug sales data. Lancet Infectious Disease, 2016: published online ahead of print.

Presented by Marc Lipman

Time: 4-5pm, Thursday 13 October 2016

Venue: Tutorial Room 1, lower ground floor, Royal Free Campus, UCL Medical School

All welcome. A map of the campus is available here. Instructions about how to get to the Royal Free are available here. The paper is available here and the supplemental materials are available here.