Pulmonary & Respiratory Medicine

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the leading killer of adults in developing and underdeveloped nations. HIV/ AIDS have also contributed to increase in the incidence of tuberculosis. In our study, we evaluated the significance of bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) in the early diagnosis of occult sputum smear negative pulmonary tuberculosis. We could establish the diagnosis of tuberculosis in 20 (87%) of the sputum smear negative samples with the help of BAL samples. Thus, BAL samples are very useful in early sputum smear negative pulmonary tuberculosis with minimal complications in the hands of an expert. *Corresponding author: Dr. Sandeep Gupta, 146, Consultant Pulmonary and Critical care, Department of Pulmonary Medicine and Critical care, Amar Hospital, Patiala, India 147001, Tel : 91-988 839 1241; E-mail: dr_ [email protected] Received March 16, 2012; Accepted July 23; Published July 25, 2012 Citation: Gupta S, Goel K (2012) Role of Bronchoalveolar Lavage in the Diagnosis of Sputum Smear Negative Tuberculosis. J Pulmon Resp Med S6:002. doi:10.4172/2161-105X.S6-002 Copyright: © 2012 Gupta S, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.