OBJECTIVE To assess the efficacy of the nucleic acid amplification (NAA) technique for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) complex from archival fine needle aspirate (FNA) smear scrapings of confirmed cases of extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) for a retrospective diagnosis of EPTB as compared to NAA from fresh FNA material from the same cases. STUDY DESIGN Smear scrapings from 51 cases; 33 case...

OBJECTIVE To assess the number of sputum specimens necessary for a reliable diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) in a pastoralist population in Ethiopia. METHOD Using routine data from Ethiopia, where three sputum specimens are currently recommended for the diagnosis of PTB, we documented, (i) the proportion of persons with suspected, PTB who submitted a first, second and third sputum sp...

tuberculosis (TB) is a serious health problem in the world.in 1990 among 5.5 million population in the world,nearly 7.5 million new cases reported and 3 million  patients expired due to this problem.because early detectio of TB is very important ,we decided to evaluate the role of fiberoptic bronchoscopy(FOB) in detection of TB in patients with negative smear and negative culture of sputum.in t...

OBJECTIVE To describe the psychological impact on women of being tested for human papillomavirus (HPV) when smear test results are borderline or mildly dyskaryotic. DESIGN Cross sectional questionnaire study. SETTING Two centres participating in an English pilot study of HPV testing in women with borderline or mildly dyskaryotic smear test results. PARTICIPANTS Women receiving borderline ...

We present the first evaluation of a novel molecular assay, the Speed-oligo Direct Mycobacterium tuberculosis (SO-DMT) assay, which is based on PCR combined with a dipstick for the detection of mycobacteria and the specific identification of M. tuberculosis complex (MTC) in respiratory specimens. A blind evaluation was carried out in two stages: first, under experimental conditions on convenien...

BACKGROUND AND AIM The diagnosis of pulmonary Tuberculosis (TB) in children is difficult and often requires hospitalization. We explored whether the yield of specimens collected for smear microscopy from different anatomical sites in one visit is comparable to the yield of specimens collected from a single anatomical site over several days. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Children with sig...

BACKGROUND In Pakistan, like many Asian countries, a large proportion of healthcare is provided through the private sector. We evaluated a systematic screening strategy to identify people with tuberculosis in private facilities in Karachi and assessed the approaches' ability to diagnose patients earlier in their disease progression. METHODS AND FINDINGS Lay workers at 89 private clinics and a...

BACKGROUND Sputum smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients expel infectious viable bacilli for a period following commencement of treatment. Patients on Directly Observed Treatment Shortcourse (DOTS) receive intermittent therapy with multidrug regimen. AIMS To determine the time to sputum smear and culture conversion following initiation of DOTS treatment and study the factors that infl...

background and objectives: for further confirmation of the previous in-house real-time pcr and cyp 141 target as a rapid and cheap diagnostic technique and a new target for direct detection of mycobacterium tuberculosis , we evaluated and compared the results of smear, culture and real-time pcr in sputa that were collected from 2 health centers. moreover we tried to evaluate the diagnostic accu...