HRCT Profile in Diagnosing Active Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Background -The purpose of this study is to show the role of high-resolution CT scan (HRCT) in diagnosing active pulmonary tuberculosis. tree-in bud appearance in HRCT is more sensitive than chest X-ray in detection of early endobronchial spread, 97% of patients with active pulmonary TB had evidence of bronchogenic spread of the disease on HRCT. Materials & Methods-One hundred clinically suspected of having active pulmonary TB with chest-Xray appearances suggestive of the disease, underwent HRCT examination. Results-HRCT results showed that 76 patients had active pulmonary TB and further clinical work-up indicated that the final diagnosis of the disease was confirmed in 52 patients. According to binomial test the combination of the two main HRCT appearances, the centrilobular nodule and "tree-in-bud" signs confirms TB diagnosis accurately. The sensitivity of HRCT in diagnosing active pulmonary TB in this study was 96% and the negative predictive value was calculated as 93%. Conclusion-We conclude that HRCT is a powerful and reliable diagnostic tool in TB diagnosis, which means that it can be used even before mycobacteriologic results are available.