We examined the potential risk of tuberculosis transmission if we modified our policy for release of patients from the "airborne precautions" category from three negative acid-fast bacillus (AFB) smears to two, or even one. Over a 4-year period, respiratory cultures from 42 patients grew Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Of these, 36 patients (81%) had a positive AFB smear result on the first submitt...

Methods The clinical specimens collected from HIV seropositive AFB smear negative patients (Group A) with features of TB, AFB smear positive, HIV reactive (Group B) and AFB smear positive, HIV negative (Group C) were processed as per standard protocol. They were inoculated onto Lowenstein Jensen media and the isolates obtained were subjected to drug susceptibility test (DST) by proportion metho...

Diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) in technology-limited countries is widely achieved by smear microscopy, which has limited sensitivity and specificity. The frequency and clinical implication of smear-positive but culture-negative among presumptive TB patients remains unclear. A cross-sectional substudy was conducted which aimed to identify the proportion of nontuberculous mycobacteria (...

The Cepheid Xpert MTB/RIF research-use-only (RUO) assay and a laboratory-developed test (LDT) targeting IS6110 were evaluated and compared to mycobacterial culture as the gold standard. The performance characteristics of both molecular assays were determined by using 112 specimens from 90 patients, including 89 pulmonary specimens and 23 extrapulmonary specimens. Of the specimens tested, 37 (33...

BACKGROUND The Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program (RNTCP) of India recommends follow-up sputum smear examination at two months into the continuation phase of treatment. The main intent of this (mid-CP) follow-up is to detect patients not responding to treatment around two-three months earlier than at the end of the treatment. However, the utility of mid-CP follow-up under programmati...

A previous recommendation suggests that stool be cultured for mycobacteria only if the smear is positive. We have correlated smear and culture results of 2,176 stool specimens submitted for mycobacterial culture. The sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values for smears to predict culture results are 34, 99, 90, and 87%, respectively. We recommend that the stool smear...

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis (TB) continues to be a major global health problem. While progress has been made to improve TB cure rates, South Africa's 76 % smear-positive pulmonary TB (PTB) case cure rate remains below the WHO target of 85 %. We report on the trends of TB smear non-conversion and their predictors at the end of an intensive phase of treatment, and how this impacted on treatment outco...