SETTING Twenty-four and 30 tuberculosis (TB) microscopy laboratories in Moldova and Uganda, respectively. OBJECTIVE To estimate the workload required to identify one additional case of TB with a third serial sputum smear examination. METHODS Retrospective laboratory register study to determine the prevalence and the incremental yield of TB cases from a third serial sputum smear examination ...

PURPOSE To evaluate the diagnostic utility and predictors for determinate results of an enzyme-linked immunospot assay using induced sputum cells (IS ELISPOT) for a rapid diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). MATERIALS AND METHODS Subjects suspected of pulmonary TB who had either sputum acid fast bacilli smear-negative or not producing sputum spontaneously were prospectively enrolled. ELI...

Background Tuberculosis (TB) is a common and lethal infectious disease, which requires accurate and early diagnosis for effective containment. Essential for the diagnosis of pulmonary infection is the detection of the bacilli through the manual microscopic examination of ZN-stained sputum smear, which is a time-consuming, complex process necessitating at least 8-10 minutes per slide. Moreover, ...

Setting. Ethiopia, Nepal, Nigeria, and Yemen. Objective. To reduce the time to complete sputum microscopy. Design. Cross-sectional surveys enrolling 923 patients with chronic cough in the 4 countries and using similar protocols. Spot-morning-spot sputum specimens were collected. An additional sputum specimen (Xspot) was collected one hour after the first, and the yields of the first two or the ...

Early diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) and prompt initiation of treatment are essential for an effective tuberculosis control programme. In many resource limited settings microscopic diagnosis is still the pivotal tool in the diagnosis of pulmonary TB. This study aimed at evaluating laboratory microscopic diagnosis of tuberculosis in a tertiary hospital in Mwanza, Tanzania. This retrospective hos...

To evaluate the efficacy of three sputum acid-fast bacillus (AFB) smears to rule out pulmonary tuberculosis, sputum AFB smear and culture results were analyzed at two university-affiliated teaching hospitals. The negative predictive value of the smear increased by only 0.2% on days 2 and 3 each, indicating that in low-prevalence populations, there is limited value in requiring three negative sp...

Programs for detecting cases of tuberculosis employ the following diagnostic methods: chest X-rays, tuberculin tests, and sputum smear or sputum culture examinations. The methods selected by public health authorities for case-finding programs should be closely tailored to local circumstances, especially the severity of the TB problem and economic considerations. In many developing areas, progra...

BACKGROUND Environmental exposure is a likely risk factor for the development of pulmonary Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) disease. The influence of environmental exposure on the response to antimicrobial treatment and relapse is unknown. METHODS We recruited 72 patients with pulmonary MAC disease (male [female], 18 [54]; age, 61.7 ± 10.3 years) who initiated and completed standard three-dr...

BACKGROUND Multi drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) poses formidable challenges to TB control due to its complex diagnostic and treatment challenges and often associated with a high rate of mortality. Accurate and rapid detection of MDR-TB is critical for timely initiation of treatment. Line Probe Assay (LPA) is a qualitative in vitro diagnostic test based on DNA-STRIP technology for the iden...