BACKGROUND Little is currently known regarding sputum smear reversion (acid-fast smear becomes positive again after negative conversion) during anti-tuberculous treatment. This study aimed to evaluate its occurrence in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) and identify factors predicting results of mycobacterial culture for smear-reversion of sputum samples. METHODS The retrospective revi...

Lower respiratory tract infections are common in children. Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid has long been established as the best biological sample for detecting infections; however, it is not easily collected Sputum may be used an alternative yet its diagnostic accuracy remains controversial. Therefore, this study sought to evaluate of sputum lower using metagenomic next-generation sequencing. Pai...

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...

BACKGROUND Induced sputum (IS) has been used to collect airway secretions in subjects who have inadequate sputum production. The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of IS for the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) in adults unable to expectorate sputum. METHODS Medical records of 39 PTB patients who underwent IS due to absence of spontaneous sputum production between Janu...

Emerging risk factors for tuberculosis (TB) infection, such as air pollution, play a significant role at both the individual and population levels. However, the association between air pollution and TB remains unclear. The objective of this study was to examine the association between outdoor air pollution and sputum culture conversion in TB patients. In the present study, 389 subjects were rec...

SETTING Damien Foundation tuberculosis (TB) control project in Bangladesh. OBJECTIVE Early diagnosis of true TB treatment failure and multidrug resistance (MDR) for more efficient DOTS-Plus. DESIGN Prospective comparison of performance on smear-positive sputum of fluorescein diacetate (FDA) vital staining vs. culture, and of slide drug susceptibility testing (slide DST) vs. the Löwenstein-J...

The rising incidence of tuberculosis worldwide means an increasing burden on diagnostic facilities, so tests simpler than Ziehl-Neelsen staining are needed. Such tests should be objective, reproducible, and have at least as good a detection limit as 10(4) bacteria/ml. A capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was developed for detection of lipoarabinomannan (LAM) in human sputum sampl...

BACKGROUND Fast and reliable detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) and drug resistance is crucial in establishing effective treatment and enforcing timely public health measures. METHODS The authors analysed the performance of a national U.K. molecular diagnostic service over a decade, based on the use of a line probe assay (Innolipa, LiPA) compared with conventional liquid a...

BACKGROUND The study was conducted at a high TB-HIV burden primary health community clinic in Cape Town, South Africa. We describe the management of children under five years of age in household contact with a smear and/or culture-positive adult TB case. METHODS This study was a record review of routinely-collected programme data. RESULTS A total of 1094 adult TB case folders were reviewed....

OBJECTIVE To integrate informal registered medical practitioners (IRMP) in Directly Observed Therapy Short Course (DOTS) implementation to improve case detection rate. METHODS This interventional study was conducted in the settlement area of Malir district whereas New Karachi was taken as control, between February to November 2005. All registered healthcare providers within 5 kilometer around...