Assessment of Detection Efficacy of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis in Sputum Samples by Real Time Pcr Based Method.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major public health problem in Nepal and ranks as one of the most prevalent communicable diseases throughout the country. In Nepal, 45% of total population is infected with TB and 40,000 people get TB every year. Twenty thousand new sputum positive cases are seen every year and 5000-7000 people die each year from TB. Thirty sputum samples were collected from Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital, Teku, Kathmandu, Nepal and the comparative study of Acid-fast Bacilli (AFB) test and Real time PCR were conducted separately with the culture test which is regarded as gold standard by WHO. Detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis through use of Real time PCR was found to be higher as compared to AFB and culture. Real-time PCR test showed higher sensitivity (100%) and specificity (94.11%) as compared to AFB test with sensitivity of 84.61% and specificity of 88.24%. Positive predictive value was found to be 84.61% and 92.86% for AFB and Q-PCR respectively. Negative predictive value was found to be 88.24%, and for Q-PCR, it was found to be 100%. Our statistics clearly show that TB diagnosis by Q-PCR is highly efficient and reliableover conventional methods of diagnosis and here we recommend its use in the hospitals and clinics of Nepal.