BACKGROUND Endobronchial tuberculosis (EBTB) is defined as a tuberculous infection of the tracheobronchial tree with microbial and histopathological evidence, with or without parenchymal involvement. Bronchoscopic appearances of EBTB have been divided into seven subtypes: actively caseating, edematous-hyperemic, fibrostenotic, tumorous, granular, ulcerative, and nonspecific bronchitic. However,...

INTRODUCTION Failure of sputum smear and/or culture conversion after 2 months of tuberculosis (TB) treatment has been considered a predictor of patient infectivity and treatment failure. We aimed to identify the factors associated with delayed sputum smear and culture conversion in patients with pulmonary TB who were given anti-TB treatment. MATERIAL AND METHODS Retrospective cohort of 136 ad...

We investigated the use of DNA amplification by polymerase chain reaction (peR) for detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in 300 patients who were suspected of having pulmonary tuberculosis and compared the results with culture results which were performed in parallel with PCR. Two-thirds of each sample was processed for smear and culture by standard methods and one-third was prepared fo...

BACKGROUND HIV infection reduces the likelihood that individuals with pulmonary tuberculosis are smear positive and that they have cavitatory disease. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) may shift the pattern of disease to be more similar to that of HIV negative patients. This would aid diagnosis--which often depends on sputum smears--but would also increase infectiousness. We assessed the effect of H...

The routine tuberculosis (TB) surveillance system in Cambodia has been strengthened under the National TB Programme (NTP). This paper provides an overview of the TB surveillance data for Cambodia at the national level for the period 2000 to 2013 and at the subnational level for 2013. The proportion of the total population that were screened for TB rose from 0.4% in 2001 to 1.1% in 2013, while t...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study is to find a relationship between the radiological manifestations of childhood tuberculosis on a high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) and the results of sputum smear. This study aims to propose an alternative indicator of infectivity in terms of prevention of disease transmission through selective isolation policy in children whose clinical condition is hi...

BACKGROUND Leishmaniasis, a vector borne tropical/subtropical disease caused by the protozoan Leishmania is transmitted to humans by sandfly vectors Phlebotomus and Lutzomyia. The principal form found in Sri Lanka is cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) and is caused by Leishmania donovani. A rising trend in disease prevalence has been observed recently in Sri Lanka and the island is in fact the newest...

OBJECTIVE To assess the efficacy of the nucleic acid amplification (NAA) technique for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) complex from archival fine needle aspirate (FNA) smear scrapings of confirmed cases of extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) for a retrospective diagnosis of EPTB as compared to NAA from fresh FNA material from the same cases. STUDY DESIGN Smear scrapings from 51 cases; 33 case...