Early detection of tuberculosis (TB) cases and supervised treatment are vital for control of the disease. To assess TB transmission from a sputum smear-negative pulmonary TB case, the contacts of a 15-year-old Iranian girl diagnosed with smear-negative TB in 2010 were traced. In all, 52 classmates and close friends and 15 school staff were screened by tuberculin skin test and chest X-ray. Those...

Tuberculosis (TB) is a serious and important public health issue to be addressed in India. Timely diagnosis of the drug resistance tuberculosis essential ensure initiate appropriate therapy. The detection resistant Mycobacterium (MTB) cases smear-negative clinical diagnosed pulmonary TB. A prospective case-control study was conducted on 473 samples received at tertiary care center from January ...

Background In Nepal, introduction of GeneXpert MTB/RIF assay (Xpert assay) as an initial confirmation test for tuberculosis (TB) has been considered to have impact as a significant decrease in number of clinically diagnosed pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) cases than previous years. This study aims to find out the distribution profile of suspected tuberculosis cases according to patients age, gende...

INTRODUCTION In Burkina Faso, the tuberculosis (TB) treatment failure rate increased from 2.5% in 2000 to 8.3% in 2006. The risk factors for TB treatment failure in the country are not well known. The study aims to determine the risk factors for treatment failure among pulmonary tuberculosis patients in four health region of Burkina Faso and to recommend appropriate interventions. METHODS A c...

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis is one of the most prominent health problems in the world, causing 1.75 million deaths each year. Rapid clinical diagnosis is important in patients who have co-morbidities such as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection. Direct microscopy has low sensitivity and culture takes 3 to 6 weeks 123. Therefore, new tools for TB diagnosis are necessary, especially in health...

Several ELISA tests based on mycobacterial antigens have been used for the rapid diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB), although demonstration of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in a smear or culture is the most reliable method. In the present study, the diagnostic value of 16-kDa and 38-kDa mycobacterial antigens was investigated in patients who were diagnosed with tuberculosis by clinical and/or bacterio...

STUDY OBJECTIVES (1) To assess the utility of a single sputum specimen in the evaluation of HIV-infected patients who are suspected of having tuberculosis (TB). (2) To identify radiographic findings that discriminate between HIV-infected patients with TB and those with pneumonia of other causes. DESIGN Retrospective cohort analysis. PATIENTS All patients evaluated at Harborview Medical Cent...

After how long in tuberculosis (TB) treatment can I expected my patient to have negative smear or culture results? This is a common concern of clinicians throughout the world. One worry is about the infectiousness of the patient with TB. A patient who is smear negative can be expected to be less infectious than one who is smear positive, and this may indicate that he or she is safe to reenter t...

OBJECTIVES To describe initial registration characteristics of adult and paediatric TB patients at a large, public, integrated TB and HIV clinic in Lilongwe, Malawi, between January 2008 and December 2010. METHODS Routine data on patient with TB category and TB type, stratified by HIV and ART status, were used to explore differences in proportions among TB only, TB/HIV co-infected patients no...