Although it is not rare to find sputum that is positive acid-fast bacilli (AFB) smear but subsequent culture fails to isolate mycobacteria in clinical practice, the incidence and clinical implication of those sputa from new patients has not been clearly elucidated. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence and clinical implication of sputum with positive AFB smear but negative in myc...

RATIONALE High rates of recurrent tuberculosis after successful treatment have been reported from different high burden settings in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, little is known about the rate of smear-positive tuberculosis after treatment default. In particular, it is not known whether or not treatment defaulters continue to be or become again smear-positive and thus pose a potential for transm...

Pulmonary tuberculosis is a common infection worldwide. In the eastern part of Iran, fluctuations in tuberculosis prevalence are seen due to the migration of people from Afghanistan. The aim of this study was to evaluate the time of bacteriologic sputum conversion after treatment and affecting factors in those whose smear does not become negative.This study was carried out on 85 smear-positive ...

At present, further investigations are needed in patients with suspected pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) and either negative sputum smear or without sputum. The aim of the present study was to analyse the yield of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) smear and PCR in patients with confirmed pulmonary TB. Patients with a positive culture for Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex in sputum or BALF were a...

Background: Microscopic smear examination is the most common test in tuberculosis (TB) detection. It is, however, not strong enough to identify TB in the majority of afflicted individuals; thus, a significant number of TB patients are smear negative and capable of transmitting the infection. The aim of this study was to evaluate the rate of smear-negative TB in northwest Iran.Methods: In this c...

BACKGROUND The Indian guidelines on following up sputum smear-negative Pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patients differ from the current World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines in that the former recommends two follow up sputum examinations (once at the end of intensive phase and the other at the end of treatment) while the latter recommends only one follow up sputum smear microscopy examination...

Malaria presents a diagnostic challenge in most tropical countries like India. Microscopy remains the gold standard for diagnosing malaria, but it is labour intensive and depends upon the skill of the examiner. Malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDT’s) have been developed as an easy, convenient alternative to microscopy. The aim of this study was to correlate and compare the conventional diagnosti...

Background: Chest x-ray has an important role in the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB). The aim of this study was to determine the radiological changes in patients with smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis.Methods: In this study, 325 patients with smear positive pulmonary TB was enrolled. The affected lobe or lobes of the left or right lung were recorded. The types of involvement were categorized...

background: determining the temporal variation and forecasting the incidence of smear positive tuberculosis (tb) can play an important role in promoting the tb control program. its results may be used as a decision-supportive tool for planning and allocating resources. the present study forecasts the incidence of smear positive tb in iran. methods: this a longitudinal study using monthly tuberc...