NTM disease symptoms are strikingly similar to those of MTB disease symptoms, and NTM has an 83.7% insensitivity rate to isoniazid and rifampin, the first-line tuberculosis treatments. The development of targeted treatment strategies and the speed with which MTB and other NTM species can be identified in the early stages of illness is of utmost importance in clinical practice.
The tagged nucleic acid in the sample is molecularly hybridized with the oligonucleotide probe molecules immobilized on the chip substrate using biochip technology. The 17 rapid identification of common clinical mycobacteria can properly lock in the kind of pathogenic bacteria by evaluating the hybridization signal strength of each probe molecule.