RT Journal Article SR Electronic(1) A1 Irandoost, Mahsa A1 Zare Ghanbari, Mehrnoosh A1 Sakhaee, Fatemeh A1 Vaziri, Farzam A1 Rahimi Jamnani, Fatemeh A1 Siadat, Seyed Davar A1 Fateh, AbolfazlYR 2018 T1 High rates of Mycobacterium fortuitum isolation in respiratory samples from Iranian patients with suspected tuberculosis: is it clinically important? JF Journal of Medical Microbiology, VO 67 IS 9 SP 1243 OP 1248 DO https://doi.org/10.1099/jmm.0.000814 PB Microbiology Society, SN 1473-5644, AB Purpose. Although Mycobacterium fortuitum (M. fortuitum) is not an organism rarely isolated from respiratory samples, its clinical importance is still not fully understood, which therefore prompted our current study. Methodology. We evaluated respiratory samples from 6800 patients with suspected tuberculosis from May 2014 to May 2016, for the detection of M. fortuitum using phenotypic and genotyping methods. Results/Key findings. Of the 40 patients with M. fortuitum lung disease, 35 had two or more positive culture results. The mean age of these 35 patients was 50.7±18.4 years, and 20 (57.1 %) were men. Sputum (68.6 %), haemoptysis (51.4 %), cough (45.7 %) and gastroesophageal disease (22.9 %) were the major presenting symptoms. Cystic fibrosis, other bacterial lung diseases and lung cancer were the main underlying pulmonary diseases. Five patients (12.5 %) were human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) positive. The most common chest X-ray findings were reticulonodular opacities (53.3 %). Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that cigarette smoking history (OR 0.334, 95 % CI 0.125–0.843, P=0.048) and underlying lung disease (OR 0.393, 95 % CI 0.216–0.588, P=0.023) were significant predictors for positive M. fortuitum infection. Conclusion. These results demonstrated the high frequency of M. fortuitum in respiratory samples and that this bacterium causes transient infection or colonization in patients with underlying pulmonary conditions, such as cystic fibrosis and cigarette smoking-induced. Additionally, it appears that infection with M. fortuitum is particularly common and may be important in patients with HIV., UL https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/jmm.0.000814