Abstract:

With the increasing aging of the population and the growing number of patients with structural lung diseases, the incidence of non-tuberculous mycobacteria pulmonary disease (NTM-PD) is on the rise. Most patients with NTM-PD have pre-existing underlying lung disease and are frequently co-infected with multiple pathogenic microorganisms, which further increases the difficulty of diagnosis and treatment of NTM disease as well as the evaluation of the efficacy of regimen. Co-infection is one of the major reasons for the low therapeutic success rate and high relapse rate. The authors reviewed the research progress of NTM co-infections by searching the relevant literature, in an attempt to enrich the understanding of pulmonary co-infections in patients with NTM-PD and to discuss their clinical intervention strategies.

Key words: Mycobacterium infections, Atypical bacterial forms, Respiratory tract infections, Research