OBJECTIVE To evaluate the performance of phage amplified biologically assay (PhaB) for detecting tuberculosis (TB) in sputum in the pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patients. METHODS Shanghai Tuberculosis Key Laboratory of Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital participated in the project in collaboration with the laboratories of six hospitals and a total of 1660 eligible participants (1351 PTB patients and...

The rapid diagnosis of infectious diseases that represent a public health problem, like tuberculosis, is a challenging problem. The sensitivity of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) makes it a potential diagnostic test for detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb) in samples with low bacillary load. A cross sectional study was carried out to determine the efficiency of PCR as compared to oth...

BACKGROUND In February 2009, a high school student was diagnosed with sputum-smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). One year later, 2 other students in the same grade developed sputum-smear positive TB. METHODS We used tuberculin skin testing (TST), chest radiography, sputum smear, and symptomatology for case identification. We defined latent TB infection (LTBI) as a TST induration of 15...

BACKGROUND In several settings, women with suspected tuberculosis are less likely to test smear positive than are men. Submission of poor-quality sputum specimens by women might be one reason for the difference between the sexes. We did a pragmatic randomised controlled trial to assess the effect of sputum-submission instructions on female patients. METHODS 1494 women and 1561 men with suspec...

BACKGROUND In patients with HIV and tuberculosis (TB) in resource-constrained settings, smear-negative disease has been associated with higher mortality than smear-positive disease. Higher reported mortality may be due to misdiagnosis, diagnostic delays, or because smear-negative disease indicates more advanced immune suppression. METHODS We analyzed culture-confirmed, pulmonary TB among pati...

Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is an important and growing problem in many developing countries. New strategies have been developed to combat the disease but require complex treatment regimens and close monitoring of patients' bacteriology results. We describe a web-based medical record system deployed in Peru to support the management of MDR-TB. Web-based analyses have been develop...

Sputum cultures are an important tool in monitoring the response to tuberculosis treatment, especially in multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. There has, however, been little study of the effect of treatment regimen composition on culture conversion. Well-designed clinical trials of new anti-tuberculosis drugs require this information to establish optimized background regimens for comparison. We c...

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 ReaSLR methodology developed for sputum processing is a novel, low-cost, and simple technique that has improved the sensitivity of smear microscopy for the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB). Sample processing consists of rapid liquefaction of the sputum specimen with the ReaSLR reagent, followed by syringe filtration, concentration by centrifugation, and use of the sediment for smear microscop...