DEAR EDITOR, I read the recent publication on children contacting with smear positive tuberculosis patients with great interest. Aminzadeh et al. concluded that the ‘Strategy of six months of supervised isonicotinylhydrazine (INH) chemoprophylaxis is successful, particularly in children who are at high risk to progress to the disease, following exposure. I agree with the usefulness and effectiv...

OBJECTIVE To determine the efficiency of routine tuberculosis (TB) case detection by examining sputum smear positivity for acid-fast bacilli in relation to duration of cough, characteristics of TB suspects examined and health service factors. METHOD We combined patient interviews with routine data from laboratory registers in 6 health care facilities in San Juan de Lurigancho district, Lima, ...

This study compares smear, growth in Lowenstein-Jensen medium, and in-house polymerase chain reaction (PCR) techniques for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. A total of 72 specimens from 72 patients with clinical symptoms of tuberculosis, including 70 sputum and two bronchial aspirate samples, were tested in parallel by smear, culture, and in-house PCR techniques. From these, 48 (66.6...

Background: Smear negative and culture positive results in pulmonary tuberculosis are not uncommon yet the underlying factors are not well established. Objective: To determine factors associated with smear negative and culture positive results. Methods: Pulmonary tuberculosis patients were consecutively recruited for 12 months from five health facilities in Mwanza region, Tanzania. Sputum exami...

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...

OBJECTIVE Tuberculosis (TB) is a major source of mortality in urban India, with many structural challenges to optimal care delivery. In the government TB program in Chennai, India's fourth most populous city, there is a 49% gap between the official number of smear-positive TB patients diagnosed and the official number registered in TB treatment within the city in 2014. We hypothesize that this ...

BACKGROUND The World Health Organization estimated in 2010 that 8.8 million new tuberculosis (TB) cases. About one-third of the world's population is infected and 10% will develop active TB disease. While cultures remain the international gold standard for diagnosing TB disease, in many other low-income countries, sputum smears remain the only and most accessible tool with which to diagnose act...