BACKGROUND Cervical cancer is the most common malignancy in women in Taiwan. In order to improve the detection of cervical lesions using the Papanicolaou (Pap) smear in screening, a number of adjunctive tests have been developed. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the utility of a magnified chemiluminescent screening examination (speculoscopy) combined with the Pap smear (PapSure) in dete...

objective: since colposcopy biopsy test plays a significant role in the evaluation of cervix, especially in patients with an abnormal result of pap smear test, therefore, this research study was conducted to compare the results of pap smear and colposcopy directed punch biopsy tests at firoozgar and akbarabady hospitals from 2001 to 2003. materials and methods: this cross-sectional study was ca...

INTRODUCTION Unsuccessful TB treatment outcome is a serious public health concern. It is compelling to identify, and deal with factors determining unsuccessful treatment outcome. Therefore, study was aimed to determine pattern of unsuccessful TB treatment outcome and associated factors in eastern Ethiopia. METHODS A case control study was used. Cases were records of TB patients registered as ...

BACKGROUND Tanzania ranks 15th among the world's 22 countries with the largest tuberculosis burden and tuberculosis has continued to be among the major public health problems in the country. Limited data, especially in patients co infected with HIV, are available to predict the duration of time required for a smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis patient to achieve sputum conversion after start...

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...

BACKGROUND Monitoring treatment response to anti-tuberculous therapy remains unsatisfactory in resource-limited countries where sophisticated and expensive tests are not readily available. Sputum culture for mycobacterium is desirable, but not obtainable in many developing countries. Sputum acid-fast bacilli (AFB) smear alone can be misinterpreted in the presence of unviable bacilli or non-tube...

SETTING Consecutive new tuberculosis (TB) patients, from eight states in Sudan, who had never been previously treated for as much as 1 month between 1998 and 2000. OBJECTIVE To determine the impact of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) co-infection on tuberculosis treatment outcome. DESIGN All patients presenting with symptoms suggestive of tuberculosis underwent sputum microscopy for acid-...

BACKGROUND The existing World Health Organization diagnostic algorithms for smear-negative TB perform poorly in HIV-infected individuals. New TB diagnostics such as urine TB lipoarabinomannan (LAM) could improve the accuracy and reduce delays in TB diagnosis in HIV-infected smear-negative presumptive TB. We sought to determine predictors for MTB culture-positivity among these patients. METHOD...

background: one of the fundamental issues of infectious disease treatment is drug resistance. the aim of the present study was to investigate the first-line anti-tuberculosis drug resistance rates and determine the risk factors related to multidrug resistant mycobacterium tuberculosis.methods: from march 2011 to september 2012, mycobacterial strains were collected from one hundred fifteen diagn...

BACKGROUND The purpose of the study was to evaluate the performance and feasibility of tuberculosis diagnosis by sputum microscopy after bleach sedimentation, compared with by conventional direct smear microscopy, in a setting of high prevalence of HIV. METHODS In a community-based study in Kenya (a population in which 50% of individuals with tuberculosis are infected with HIV), individuals w...