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...

STUDY OBJECTIVES Identification of acid-fast bacilli (AFB) in the sputum smear at the completion of tuberculosis therapy is in some settings considered evidence of treatment failure. However, some patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) will have positive smear results with negative sputum culture results at the end of therapy. The objectives of this study were to estimate the prevalence of p...

OBJECTIVE To assess the feasibility of a streamlined strategy for improving tuberculosis (TB) diagnostic evaluation and treatment initiation among patients with presumed TB. DESIGN Single-arm interventional pilot study at five primary care health centers of a streamlined, SIngle-saMPLE (SIMPLE) TB diagnostic evaluation strategy: 1) examination of two smear results from a single spot sputum sp...

Pulmonary tuberculosis in AIDS/ARC patients is an increasing problem. To assess the utility of acid-fast smears of pulmonary secretions in this patient population, we evaluated 38 AIDS/ARC patients with culture-positive pulmonary infection. A control group consisted of 57 non-AIDS/ARC patients, who also did not belong to an AIDS risk group, diagnosed during the same period. The number of cultur...

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...

Sputum smear microscopy is an easy, inexpensive, and rapid method for detecting tubercle bacilli when there are more than 10,000 bacilli/ml in the original sputum. Furthermore, because the microscopic method provides not only quantitative, but also qualitative information, such as the shape of bacilli, it has remained significant. We have previously developed and reported panel test slides made...

A 44-year-old man with a history of emphysema presented with 2 days of blood-tinged sputum. Prior to this, he had noticed fever with night sweats, generalized weakness, weight loss, and cough for 2 months. He is a known alcoholic who appeared chronically ill, poorly nourished, and emaciated. He was febrile, and lung auscultation revealed rales over the right upper chest. The blood leukocyte cou...

The overlap between the populations in sub-Saharan Africa infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis has led to an upsurge in tuberculosis cases over the last 10 years. The relative increase in the proportion of notified sputum-smear-negative pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) cases is greater than that of sputum-smear-positive PTB cases. This is a consequence of ...

In the Report on the Classification of Pl^~ monary Tuberculosis published by the Tuberculosis Association of India (1940), a plea made for the recognition of a definite standard in the examination of sputum for tubercle bacilli, both on the admission and discharge oi patients. The minimum standard suggested for declaring a patient negative is that on discharge no tubercle bacilli should be foun...

BACKGROUND Pulmonary tuberculosis can produce unusual radiographic appearances and negative results of sputum and bronchoscopic examinations are common. This study assessed the value of ultrasound guided aspiration biopsy in the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis with unusual radiographic appearances. METHODS Thirteen patients, ultimately diagnosed as having tuberculosis, underwent a chest u...