{"doi":"10.3389/fneur.2022.892224","title":"Improving Technology to Diagnose Tuberculous Meningitis: Are We There Yet?","abstract":"Diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis (TBM) remains challenging due to a paucity of high-performance diagnostics. Even those that have reasonable sensitivity are not adequate to 'rule out' TBM. Therefore, a combination of clinical factors alongside microbiological, molecular, and radiological investigations are utilized, depending on availability. A low threshold for starting empiric therapy in the appropriate clinical scenario remains crucial for good outcomes in many cases. Herein, we review the current TBM diagnostics landscape with a focus on limitations frequently encountered, such as diagnostic test performance, cost, laboratory infrastructure, and clinical expertise. Though molecular technologies, particularly GeneXpert MTB/Rif Ultra, have been a step forward, diagnosis of TBM remains difficult. We also provide an overview of promising technologies, such as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) lactate, a new lipoarabinomannan test (FujiLAM), metagenomic next-generation sequencing, and transcriptomics that may further improve our TBM diagnostic capacity and lead to better outcomes.","journal":"Frontiers in Neurology","year":2022,"id":248506,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":30,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9543,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":887950,"name":"Jane Gakuru","orcid":"0000-0003-0150-4887","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":735381,"name":"Jayne Ellis","orcid":"0000-0002-7009-9144","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":418473,"name":"Fiona V Cresswell","orcid":"0000-0002-5070-532X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":267769,"name":"Nathan C. Bahr","orcid":"0000-0002-9431-8938","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":452980,"name":"Kenneth Ssebambulidde","orcid":"0000-0002-8125-0698","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":78,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:24:14.794521Z","pmid":"35711276","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}