BACKGROUND Ileocecal Tuberculosis (TB) is difficult to diagnose clinically as getting histological specimens means resorting to surgery, which is often hazardous and complicated in sick, anemic and emaciated patients with malabsortion syndrome. The present study was undertaken as an attempt to devise clinical criteria for diagnosis of ileocecal TB without resorting to invasive surgery. METHOD...

Worldwide resistance to antituberculosis drugs is jeopardising the control and eventually the elimination of tuberculosis (TB). Patients who are infected by Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistant to antituberculosis drugs, especially to both isoniazid and rifampicin and thus having multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB, need more complicated treatment that lasts longer and consists of a large number of dr...

We describe an allele-specific PCR assay to detect mutations in three codons of the rpoB gene (516, 526, and 531) in Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains; mutations in these codons are reported to account for majority of M. tuberculosis clinical isolates resistant to rifampin (RIF), a marker of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Three different allele-specific PCRs are carried out either ...

OBJECTIVES To determine (a) the influence of HIV in developing osteoarticular infections in intravenous drug abusers (IVDAs) and (b) the differences between the clinical features of osteoarticular infections in IVDAs and a control group of non-IVDAs. METHODS A comparative study of the clinical features of osteoarticular infections in all HIV positive and HIV negative IVDAs admitted to the dep...

BACKGROUND The global population is ageing quickly and our understanding of age-related changes in the immune system suggest that the elderly will have less immunological protection from active tuberculosis (TB). DISCUSSION Ongoing global surveillance of TB notifications shows increasing age of patients with active TB. This effect of age is compounded by changes to clinical manifestations of ...

BACKGROUND Xpert MTB/RIF was introduced as a screening test for all presumptive tuberculosis cases in primary health services in Cape Town, South Africa. STUDY AIM To compare multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) treatment commencement times in MDRTBPlus Line Probe Assay and Xpert MTB/RIF-based algorithms in a routine operational setting. METHODS The study was undertaken in 10 of 29 hig...

Emergence of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) has significantly threatened to jeopardize global efforts to control TB, especially in HIV endemic regions. XDR-TB is mainly an iatrogenically created issue, and understanding the epidemiological and risk factors associated with it is of paramount importance in curbing this menace. Emergence of this deadly phenomenon can be prevented...