Fig. 1
The clinical presentation of the patient over time. Three representative X-ray pictures from patient presentation, during therapy, and follow-up are shown on top of the graph. The time to positivity from culture is reported in days on the left y-axis with black squares. A time to positivity of 56 is considered to be negative. The molecular bacterial load values are shown on right y-axis as black dots. Smear microscopy is referred to as acid-fast bacilli positive or acid-fast bacilli negative for positive or negative samples respectively and is shown on the graph as diamonds. AAFB+ acid-fast bacilli positive, AAFB– acid-fast bacilli negative, CFU colony-forming unit, MBL molecular bacterial load, TTP time to positivity, ZN Ziehl–Neelsen