The prevalence of non-tuberculous mycobacterial infections in mainland China: Systematic review and meta-analysis.

Summary Despite increasing attention towards the non-tuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) diseases, the overall epidemiological information remains unavailable for China. A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted using data of 105 qualified publications from Chinese mainland. The assay demonstrated that the prevalence of NTM infections among tuberculosis suspects was 6.3% (5.4%–7.4%) in mainland, while the Southeastern region had the highest NTM prevalence at 8.6% (7.1%–10.5%). In Northern China, slow growing mycobacteria (SGM) consistituted 63.7% of all the NTM isolates, while this rate in Southern China was 53.0%. More rapid growing mycobacteria (RGM) were present in southern China than the northern ( χ 2  = 57.996, P